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OF 


HON.   EDWARD  (EVERETT, 


CONSECRATION  OF  THE   NATIONAL  CEMETERY  AT 
GETTYSBURG,  19ra  NOVEMBER,  1863, 

WITH  THE 

DEDICATORY  SPEECH  OF  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN, 


OTHER    EXERCISES    OF    THE    OCCASION; 

ACCOMPANIED    BY 

AN   ACCOUNT   OF  THE   ORIGIN  OF  THE   UNDERTAKING  AND  OF   THE  ARRANGE- 
MENT OF  THE  CEMETERY  GROUNDS,  AND  BY  A  MAP  OF  THE 
BATTLE-FIELD   AND  A  PLAN  OF  THE 
. .  GE^ZTLRY. 


PUBLISHED   FOR  THE   BENEFIT   OF   THE   CEMETERY   MONUMENT    FUND. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE,   BROWN  AND   COMPANY. 

1864. 


Ef 


•  5 


MEMORIAM 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1864,  by 

LITTLE,  BROWN  &  Co. 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


RIVE u SIDE,   CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED    AND   PRINTED   BY   H.   O.   HOUGHTON. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

LETTKR  OF  DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ.,  TO   HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT, 

REQUESTING  THE  PUBLICATION  OF  HIS  ADDRESS       .        .  5 

HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT  TO  DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ.    ...  7 

ACCOUNT  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 8 

LETTER  OF  DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ.,  TO  GOVERNOR  CURTIN        .  14 

GOVERNOR  CURTIN  TO  DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ 15 

DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ.,  TO  HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT  ;  INVITATION 

TO  DELIVER  THE  ADDRESS 16 

HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT   TO    DAVID   WILLS,  ESQ.,  ACCEPTING 

THE  INVITATION 17 

MAJOR-GENERAL  MEADE  TO  DAVID  WILLS,  ESQ.    ...  18 
LIKUTENANT-GENERAL  SCOTT  TO  THE  SAME        .        .        .        .18 

REAR-ADMIRAL  STEWART  TO  THE  SAME 19 

HON.  S.  P.  CHASE  TO  THE  SAME 20 

SPEECH  OF  HON.  W.  H.  SEWARD 20 

ORDER  OF  PROCESSION 22 

PROGRAMME  OF  ARRANGEMENTS 24 

PRAYER  OF  REV.  DR.  STOCKTON 26 

ADDRESS  BY  HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT      .....  29 

ODE  BY  B.  B.  FRENCH,  ESQ 83 

DEDICATORY  SPEECH  BY  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN          ...  84 

DIRGE  BY  JAMES  G.  PERCIVAL 85 

BENEDICTION  BY  REV.  PRESIDENT  BAUGHER   ....  88 


M102476 


LETTERS, 


GETTYSBURG,  %5th  November,  1863. 
HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT: 

DEAR  SIR,  —  On  behalf  of  the  Governors  of  the  several 
States  interested  in  the  National  Cemetery,  I  request  of  you 
for  publication  a  copy  of  your  Address  delivered  at  the  con- 
secration of  the  grounds  on  Thursday,  the  19th  of  this  month, 
the  proceeds  of  the  sale  to  be  added  to  the  fund  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  heroes  whose  re- 
mains are  deposited  in  the  cemetery. 

In  performing  this  official  duty,  allow  me  as  a  citizen  of 
Gettysburg,  and  in  behalf  of  my  fellow-citizens,  to  express 
our  peculiar  satisfaction  at  that  part  of  your  Address,  which 
is  devoted  to  a  narrative  of  the  all-important  events,  that 
have  at  once  raised  this  place  into  permanent  importance  and 
celebrity.  Knowing  as  we  do  that  you  used  great  diligence 
and  care  to  procure  as  accurate  an  account  as  possible  of  the 
movements  of  the  two  armies  in  this  vicinity,  and  their  posi- 
tions in  the  battle  on  the  different  days,  we  regard  that  por- 
tion of  your  Address  as  very  important  and  valuable.  Whilst 
its  delivery  commanded  the  closest  attention  of  the  vast  as- 
sembly who  listened  to  it,  —  thus  giving  evidence  of  their 
intense  interest  and  entire  appreciation,  —  this  portion  of  the 
Oration,  preserved  in  an  authentip  form,  will  descend  to  pos- 
terity as  a  production  of  permanent  historical  value. 

Allow  me  also  to  express  my  gratification  at  the  tribute 
paid  by  you  to  Major-General  Reynolds,  in  ascribing  "  to  his 
forethought  and  self-sacrifice  the  triumph  of  the  two  succeed- 
ing days."  In  that  well-deserved  tribute  the  historian  who 
shall  do  justice  to  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  will  undoubtedly 
concur,  pointing  to  him  as  the  individual  to  whom  our  glorious 
success  was  in  a  great  degree  due.  He  was  in  the  advance 

1 


0  LETTERS. 

on  the  extreme  left  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  in  com- 
mand of  the  First  Army  Corps.  On  Wednesday  morning, 
July  1st.  when  pressing  his  corps  forward  to  meet  and  retard 
ihe  pi-ogfes.s'  of  th:e  enemy,  whose  position  and  movements 
were  beginning  to  be  developed  to  him,  he  told  one  of  his 
aides,  as  they  approached  Gettysburg  and  examined  the  face 
of  the  country,  that  Cemetery  Hill  must  be  held  for  our  army 
at  all  hazards  ;  that  he  would  advance  his  corps  rapidly  to 
Seminary  Ridge,  west  of  the  town,  and  temporarily  occupy 
that  position  ;  that  he  would  there  engage  the  enemy,  who 
was  advancing,  and  delay  his  further  progress,  so  as  to  give 
time  for  the  whole  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  to  concen- 
trate on  Cemetery  Hill  and  the  ridges  running  out  either 
way  from  it ;  that,  if  pressed  too  hard,  he  would  gradually 
fall  back,  contesting  the  ground  step  by  step,  and,  if  neces- 
sary to  delay  the*  enemy,  would  fight  from  house  to  house, 
through  the  town.  He  fell,  the  victim  of  a  Rebel  sharp- 
shooter, so  soon  in  the  action  of  Wednesday  morning,  as  he 
was  carrying  out  these  designs,  that  but  few  persons  are  cogni- 
zant of  his  real  plans.  When  the  facts  are  fully  made  known, 
history  and  an  impartial  world  will  accord  to  him  the  highest 
praise.  His  great  foresight  and  brave  conduct  on  that  occa- 
sion will  forever  endear  him  to  those  who  love  to  worship  at 
the  shrine  of  true  patriotism.  He  was  truly  a  soldier,  — 
always  with  his  men  in  the  camp  and  in  the  field,  sharing 
their  hardships,  toils,  and  dangers.  He  loved  his  profession, 
and  devoted  himself  exclusively  to  it ;  and  in  the  vigor  of 
manhood  he  nobly  laid  down  his  life,  a  sacrifice  on  his  coun- 
try's altar,  on  the  soil  of  his  native  State,  at  the  head  of  his 
brave  corps,  that  the  rest  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  might 
the  more  successfully  reach  the  position  of  his  own  selection 
for  its  defence.  This  place  of  his  choice  proved  to  be  the  true 
position  on  which  to  meet  and  check  the  onward  march  of 
the  rebellious  invaders. 

Not  doubting  that  you  will  take  an  interest  in  this  confir- 
mation of  the  estimate  placed  by  you  on  General  Reynolds's 
services,  I  remain,  dear  sir, 

Yours,  with  great  respect, 

[Signed]      DAVID   WILLS. 


LETTERS. 


BOSTON,  1M  December,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  this  day  received  your  letter  of 
the  25th  of  November,  requesting,  on  behalf  of  the  Governors 
of  the  several  States  interested  in  the  National  Cemetery,  a 
copy,  for  publication  in  a  permanent  form,  of  the  Address 
delivered  by  me  at  the  consecration.  I  shall  have  great  pleas- 
ure in  complying  with  this  request,  the  rather  as  it  is  proposed 
that  the  proceeds  of  the  publication  shall  be  added  to  the  fund 
for  the  erection  of  a  monument  to  the  memoiy  of  the  brave 
men  whose  remains  are  deposited  in  the  cemetery. 

You  will  be  pleased  to  accept  my  thanks  for  the  obliging 
manner  in  which  you  speak  of  the  historical  portion  of  my 
Address.  It  was,  of  course,  impossible  to  compress  within  so 
small  a  compass  a  narrative  of  the  three  eventful  days,  which 
should  do  exact  justice  to  every  incident  or  every  individual. 
On  some  points,  as  in  most  narratives  of  battles,  the  printed 
accounts,  and  even  the  official  reports,  differ.  In  revising  my 
Address  for  publication  in  this  form,  I  shall  correct  one  or  two 
slight  errors  of  the  first  draught,  and  take  advantage  of  sources 
of  information  not  originally  accessible. 

I  am  much  gratified  with  your  concurrence  with  me  in  the 
estimate  I  had  formed  of  the  character  of  General  Reynolds, 
and  of  his  very  important  services  in  determining  the  entire 
fortunes  of  this  ever  memorable  battle. 

I  remain,  dear  sir,  with  great  regard, 

Very  truly  yours, 

EDWARD  EVERETT. 
DAVID  WILLS,  Esq., 

Agent  for  the  National  Cemetery. 


THE   NATIONAL   CEMETERY. 


A  FEW  days  after  the  terrific  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  His 
Excellency  A.  G.  Curtin,  Governor  of  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania, hastening  to  the  relief  of  the  sick  and  wounded  sol- 
diers, visited  the  battle-field,  and  the  numerous  hospitals  in 
and  around  Gettysburg,  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the  ar- 
rangements for  alleviating  the  sufferings  and  ministering  to 
the  wants  of  the  wounded  and  dying.  His  official  duties  soon 
requiring  his  return  to  Harrisburg,  he  authorized  and  ap- 
pointed David  Wills,  Esq.,  of  Gettysburg,  to  act  as  his  spe- 
cial agent  in  this  matter. 

In  traversing  the  battle-field,  the  feelings  were  shocked  and 
the  heart  sickened  at  the  sights  that  presented  themselves  at 
every  step.  The  remains  of  our  brave  soldiers,  from  the 
necessary  haste  with  which  they  were  interred,  in  many  in- 
stances were  but  partially  covered  with  earth,  and,  indeed, 
in  some  instances  were  left  wholly  unburied.  Other  sights, 
too  shocking  to  be  described,  were  occasionally  seen.  These 
appearances  presented  themselves  promiscuously  over  the 
fields  of  arable  land  for  miles  around,  which  would,  of  ne- 
cessity, be  farmed  over  in  a  short  time.  The  graves,  where 
marked  at  all,  were  only  temporarily  so,  and  the  marks  were 
liable  to  be  obliterated  by  the  action  of  the  weather.  Such 
was  the  spectacle  witnessed  on  going  over  the  battle-field,  — 
a  field  made  glorious  by  victory  achieved  through  the  sacrifice 
of  the  lives  of  the  thousands  of  brave  men,  whose  bodies  and 
graves  were  in  such  exposed  condition.  And  this,  too,  on 
Pennsylvania  soil!  Humanity  shuddered  at  the  sight,  and 
called  aloud  for  a  remedy.  The  idea,  accordingly,  suggested 
itself  of  taking  measures  to  gather  these  remains  together,  and 
bury  them  decently  and  in  order  in  a  cemetery.  Mr.  Wills 
submitted  the  proposition  and  plan  for  this  purpose,  by  letter, 


1  E 


THE  NATIONAL   CEMETERY.  9 

July  24th,  1863,  to  His  Excellency  Governor  Curtin  ;  and 
the  Governor,  with  that  profound  sympathy  and  that  care 
and  anxiety  for  the  soldier  which  have  always  characterized 
him,  approved  of  the  design,  and  directed  a  correspondence  to 
be  entered  into  at  once  by  Mr.  Wills  with  the  Governors  of 
the  other  States  having  soldiers  dead  on  the  battle-field  of 
Gettysburg.  The  Governors  of  the  different  States,  wdth 
great  promptness,  seconded  the  project,  and  the  details  of  the 
arrangement  were  subsequently  agreed  upon.  Grounds  favor- 
ably situated  were  selected  by  the  agent,  and  Governor  Curtin 
directed  him  to  purchase  them  for  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
for  the  specific  purpose  of  the  burial  of  the  soldiers  who  fell 
in  defence  of  the  Union  in  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  and 
that  lots  in  this  cemetery  should  be  gratuitously  tendered  to 
each  State  having  such  dead  on  the  field.  The  expenses  of 
the  removal  of  the  dead,  of  the  laying  out,  ornamenting,  and 
enclosing  the  grounds,  and  erecting  a  lodge  for  the  keeper, 
and  of  constructing  a  suitable  monument  to  the  memory  of  the 
dead,  to  be  borne  by  the  several  States,  and  assessed  in  pro- 
portion to  their  population,  as  indicated  by  their  representation 
in  Congress.  The  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  stipulated  that 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania  would  subsequently  keep  the  grounds 
in  order,  and  the  buildings  and  fences,  in  repair. 

Seventeen  acres  of  land  on  Cemetery  Hill,  at  the  apex  of 
the  triangular  line  of  battle  of  the  Union  army,  were  pur- 
chased by  Pennsylvania  for  this  purpose.  There  were  stone 
fences  upon  these  grounds,  which  had  been  advantageously 
used  by  the  infantry.  On  the  elevated  portions  of  the  ground 
many  batteries  of  artillery  had  been  planted,  which  not  only 
commanded  the  view  of  the  whole  line  of  battle  of  the  Union 
army,  but  were  brought  to  bear  almost  incessantly,  with  great 
effect,  upon  every  position  of  the  Rebel  lines.  We  refer  the 
reader  to  the  excellent  map  of  this  battle-field  and  its  hos- 
pitals, in  the  front  of  this  pamphlet.  It  was  prepared  by 
the  Rev.  Andrew  B.  Cross,  who  is  one  of  the  most  active 
and  zealous  members  of  the  Christian  Commission,  and  who 
labored  faithfully  for  months  in  the  hospitals  at  Gettysburg, 
ministering  to  the  temporal  and  spiritual  wants  of  the  wounded 
and  dying  soldiers.  This  map  gives  the  locality  of  the  Na- 


10  THE  NATIONAL   CEMETERY. 

tional  Cemetery,  as  well  as  many  other  points  of  interest 
connected  with  the  battle-field. 

The  cemetery  grounds  were  plotted  and  laid  out,  in  the 
original  and  appropriate  style  indicated  by  the  plate  accom- 
panying this  description,  by  the  celebrated  rural  architect, 
Mr.  William  Saunders. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  this  final  resting-place  for  the  re- 
mains of  our  departed  heroes,  who  nobly  laid  down  their  lives 
a  sacrifice  on  their  country's  altar,  for  the  sake  of  Universal 
Freedom  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  Who  can  esti- 
mate the  importance  to  us  and  all  posterity  of  their  valor  and 
heroism  ?  Their  remains,  above  all  others,  deserve  the  highest 
honor  that  a  grateful  people  can  bestow  on  them.  Their  deeds 
will  live  in  history  long  after  their  bodies  have  mouldered  into 
dust ;  and  the  place  where  they  now  lie  will  be  honored,  pro- 
tected, and  preserved  as  a  sad,  but  sacred  memento  of  their 
brave  conduct. 

The  design  contemplates  the  erection  of  a  monument  to  the 
memory  of  the  dead ;  and  the  situation  which  seems  to  meet 
with  the  greatest  favor  is  in  the  centre  of  the  semicircle  of 

o 

graves.  It  has  been  suggested,  that  each  State  having  dead 
here  should  contribute  a  slab  or  stone  tablet,  to  be  placed  in 
the  monument,  with  the  names  engraved  upon  it  of  those 
whose  graves  are  not  identified,  and  who  consequently  are 
interred  in  the  lots  set  apart  for  the  unknown. 

The  grounds  are  laid  off  in  lots  for  each  State,  proportioned 
in  size  to  the  number  of  marked  graves  on  the  Gettysburg 
battle-field.  There  is  also  a  lot  set  apart  for  the  burial  of  the 
remains  of  those  who  belonged  to  the  regular  service.  The 
graves  of  about  one  third  of  the  dead  were  unmarked  ;  but 
these  bodies  are  deposited  in  prominent  and  honorable  po- 
sitions at  each  end  of  the  semicircular  arrangement  of  the 
lots.  The  grounds  naturally  have  a  gradual  slope  in  every 
direction  from  the  centre  of  the  semicircle  to  the  circumfer- 
ence. Each  lot  is  laid  oif  in  sections,  with  a  space  of  four  feet 
for  a  walk  between  each  section.  The  outer  section  is  let- 
tered A,  and  so  on  in  alphabetical  order.  As  the  observer 
stands  in  the  centre  of  the  semicircle,  facing  the  circumference, 
the  burials  are  commenced  at  the  right  hand  of  the  section  in 


THE   NATIONAL   CEMETERY.  11 

each  lot,  and  the  graves  are  numbered  from  one  up  numeri- 
cally. A  register  is  made  of  the  number,  name,  regiment, 
and  company  of  the  occupant  of  each  grave.  Two  feet  space 
is  allotted  to  each,  and  they  are  laid  with  the  heads  towards 
the  centre  of  the  semicircle.  At  the  head  of  the  graves  there 
is  a  stone  wall,  built  up  from  the  bottom  as  a  foundation  for 
the  headstones,  which  are  to  be  placed  along  the  whole  length 
of  each  section,  and  on  which,  opposite  each  grave,  will  be 
engraved  the  name,  regiment,  and  company  of  the  deceased. 
These  headstones  will  be  all  alike  in  size,  the  design  being 
wholly  adapted  to  a  symmetrical  order,  and  one  which  com- 
bines simplicity  and  durability.  No  other  marks  will  be  per- 
mitted to  be  erected.  There  will  be  about  twenty-nine  hun- 
dred burials  in  the  cemetery. 

An  application  was  made  by  Mr.  Wills  to  Hon.  E.  M. 
Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  for  coffins  for  the  interment  of 
the  dead,  and  the  Quartermaster-General  was  promptly  or- 
dered to  furnish  them.  The  Secretary  of  War,  also,  with  a 
liberal  considerateness,  afforded  many  facilities  for  the  proper 
and  honorable  solemnization  of  the  exercises  of  the  19th  of  No- 
vember. The  removals  and  burials  are  made  with  the  greatest 
cai'e,  and  under  the  strictest  supervision.  Every  precaution  is 
taken  to  identify  the  unmarked  graves,  and  also  to  prevent 
the  marked  graves  from  losing  their  identity,  by  the  deface- 
ment of  the  original  temporary  boards  on  which  the  names 
were  written  or  cut  by  comrades  in  arms.  The  graves  be- 
ing all  numbered,  the  numbers  are  registered  every  evening 
in  a  record-book,  with  the  name,  company,  and  regiment. 
This  register  will  designate  the  graves,  should  the  temporary 
marks  become  defaced  by  the  action  of  the  weather,  or  be 
otherwise  lost,  before  the  permanent  headstones  are  put  in 
place.  After  the  burials  are  all  made,  the  graves  ah1  per- 
manently marked,  and  the  style  of  monument  determined 
upon,  a  map  will  be  prepared  and  lithographed,  showing  the 
number  of  each  grave  in  each  section,  and  a  key  be  published 
with  the  map,  giving  the  full  inscription  on  the  headstone,  cor- 
responding with  the  number. 

A  few  of  the  States  sent  agents  to  Gettysburg  to  superin- 
tend the  removal  and  burial  of  their  dead,  while  most  of  them 


12  THE   NATIONAL   CEMETERY. 

intrusted  the  arrangements  for  that  purpose  to  the  agent  of  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania.  The  Boston  city  authorities,  in  con- 
cert with  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  sent  an  efficient 
committee  to  Gettysburg,  who  made  the  removals  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts dead  by  their  own  special  arrangement. 

The  consecration  of  these  cemetery  grounds  was,  in  due 
time,  suggested  by  Governor  Curtin.  The  name  of  Hon.  Ed- 
ward Everett  was  submitted  to  the  Governors  of  all  the  States 
interested,  as  the  orator  to  deliver  the  Address  on  that  occa- 
sion, and  they  unanimously  concurred  in  him  as  the  person 
eminently  suitable  for  the  purpose.  A  letter  of  invitation  was 
accordingly  addressed  to  him,  inviting  him  to  deliver  the  Ora- 
tion. He  accepted  the  duty,  and  the  19th  of  November  was 
fixed  upon  as  the  day.  Hon.  W.  H.  Lamon,  the  United 
States  Marshal  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  was  selected  as 
the  Chief  Marshal  of  the  civic  procession,  and  to  Major-Gen- 
eral D.  N.  Couch,  commanding  the  department  of  the  Susque- 
hannah,  were  committed  the  arrangements  for  the  military. 
To  all  of  these  gentlemen  great  credit  is  due  for  the  admira- 
ble manner  in  which  they  discharged  the  duties  of  the  positions 
assigned  them.  Birgfield's  Brigade  Band  of  Philadelphia  was 
invited  to  furnish  the  music  for  the  ceremonial  of  consecration, 
which  was  done  gratuitously,  and  in  a  very  acceptable  manner. 
The  Presidential  party  was  accompanied  by  the  Marine  Band 
from  the  Navy  Yard  at  Washington,  and  the  military  detach- 
ment was  attended  by  the  Brass  Band  from  Fort  McHenry, 
Baltimore. 

The  public  generally  were  invited  to  be  present  and  partici- 
pate in  these  solemn  exercises,  and  special  invitations  were 
sent  to  the  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States 
and  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  —  to  Major-General  George 
G.  Meade,  commanding  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and, 
through  him,  to  the  officers  and  privates  of  that  army  which 
had  fought  so  valiantly,  and  gained  such  a  memorable  victory 
on  the  Gettysburg  battle-field,  —  and  to  Lieutenant-General 
Winfield  Scott  and  Admiral  Charles  Stewart,  the  distin- 
guished and  time-honored  representatives  of  the  Army  and 
Navy.  The  President  of  the  United  States  was  present,  and 
participated  in  these  solemnities,  delivering  a  brief  Dedicatory 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY.  13 

Address.  The  occasion  was  further  made  memorable  by  the 
presence  of  large  representations  from  the  army  and  navy,  of 
the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States,  the  Ministers  of 
France  and  Italy,  the  French  Admiral,  and  other  distinguished 
foreigners,  and  several  members  of  Congress,  also  of  the  Gov- 
ernors of  a  large  number  of  the  States  interested,  with  their 
staffs,  and,  in  some  instances,  large  delegations,  besides  a  vast 
concourse  of  citizens  from  all  the  States. 

Letters  were  received,  in  reply  to  the  invitations  addressed 
to  them,  from  Major-General  Meade,  Lieutenant-General 
Scott,  Admiral  Charles  Stewart,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, Hon.  S.  P.  Chase,  regretting  their  inability  to  be  present, 
and  expressive  of  their  approval  of  the  project. 

One  of  the  most  sad  and  impressive  features  of  the  solem- 
nities of  the  19th  of  November  was  the  presence,  in  the  pro- 
cession and  on  the  grounds,  of  a  delegation  of  about  fifty 
wounded  soldiers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  from  the  York 
Hospital.  These  men  had  been  wounded  in  the  Battle  of 
Gettysburg,  and  were  present  in  a  delegation  to  pay  this  just 
tribute  to  the  remains  of  their  fallen  comrades.  During  the 
exercises  their  bronzed  cheeks  were  frequently  suffused  with 
tears,  indicative  of  their  heartfelt  sympathy  in  the  solemn 
scene  before  them.  From  none  others  could  tears  of  un- 
feigned grief  fall  upon  these  graves  with  so  much  sad  appre- 
ciation. These  scarred  veterans  came  and  dropped  the  tear 
of  sorrow  on  the  last  resting-place  of  those  companions  by 
whose  sides  they  so  nobly  fought,  and,  lingering  over  the 
graves  after  the  crowd  had  dispersed,  slowly  went  away, 
strengthened  in  their  faith  in  a  nation's  gratitude. 


LETTERS. 


GETTYSBURG,  August  17, 1863. 
To  HIS  EXCELLENCY  A.  G.  CURTIN, 
Governor  of  Pennsylvania. 

SIR,  —  By  virtue  of  the  authority  reposed  in  me  by  your 
Excellency,  I  have  invited  the  cooperation  of  the  several  loyal 
States  having  soldier-dead  on  the  battle-field  around  this  place 
in  the  noble  project  of  removing  their  remains  from  their  pres- 
ent exposed  and  imperfectly  buried  condition,  on  the  fields  for 
miles  around,  to  a  cemetery. 

The  chief  executives  of  fifteen  out  of  the  seventeen  States 
have  already  responded,  in  most  instances  pledging  their 
States  to  unite  in  the  movement ;  in  a  few  instances  highly 
approving  of  the  project,  and  stipulating  to  urge  upon  their 
legislatures  to  make  appropriations  to  defray  their  proportion- 
ate share  of  expense. 

I  have  also,  at  your  request,  selected  and  purchased  the 
grounds  for  this  cemetery,  the  land  to  be  paid  for  by,  and  the 
title  to  be  made  to,  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  to  be  held 
in  perpetuity,  devoted  to  the  object  for  which  purchased. 

The  grounds  embrace  about  seventeen  acres  on  Cemetery 
Hill,  fronting  on  the  Baltimore  turnpike,  and  extending  to  the 
Taneytown  road.  It  is  the  ground  which  formed  the  apex  of 
our  triangular  line  of  battle,  and  the  key  to  our  line  of  de- 
fences. It  embraces  the  highest  point  on  Cemetery  Hill,  and 
overlooks  the  whole  battle-field.  It  is  the  spot  which  should 
be  specially  consecrated  to  this  sacred  purpose.  It  was  here 
that  such  immense  quantities  of  our  artillery  were  massed, 
and  during  Thursday  and  Friday  of  the  battle,  from  this  most 
important  point  on  the  field,  dealt  out  death  and  destruction 
to  the  Rebel  army  in  every  direction  of  their  advance. 


LETTERS.  15 

I  have  been  in  conference,  at  different  times,  with  agents 
sent  here  by  the  Governors  of  several  of  the  States,  and  we 
have  arranged  details  for  carrying  out  this  sacred  work.  I 
herewith  enclose  you,  a  copy  of  the  proposed  arrangement  of 
details,  a  copy  of  which  I  have  also  sent  to  the  chief  executive 
of  each  State  having  dead  here. 

I  have  also,  at  your  suggestion,  cordially  tendered  to  each 
State  the  privilege,  if  they  desire,  of  joining  in  the  title  to  the 
land. 

I  think  it  would  be  showing  only  a  proper  respect  for  the 
health  of  this  community  not  to  commence  the  exhuming  of 
the  dead,  and  removal  to  the  cemetery,  until  the  month  of 
November ;  and  in  the  mean  time  the  grounds  should  be  artis- 
tically laid  out,  and  consecrated  by  appropriate  ceremonies. 
I  am,  with  great  respect, 

Your  Excellency's  obedient  servant, 
DAVID  WILLS. 


PENNSYLVANIA  EXECUTIVE  CHAMBEB, 
HAKKISBUKG,  PA.,  August  21, 1863. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Yours  of  the  26th  instant  was  duly  received, 
and  ought  to  have  been  answered  sooner,  but  you  know  how 
I  am  pressed. 

I  am  much  pleased  with  the  details  for  the  cemetery  which 
you  have  so  thoughtfully  suggested,  and  will  be  glad,  so  far  as 
is  in  my  power,  to  hasten  their  consummation  on  the  part  of 
Pennsylvania. 

It  is  of  course  probable  that  our  sister  States  joining  with 
us  in  this  hallowed  undert^ing  may  desire  to  make  some  alter- 
ations and  modifications  of  your  proposed  plan  of  purchasing 
and  managing  these  sacred  grounds,  and  it  is  my  wish  that 
you  give  to  their  views  the  most  careful  and  respectful  consid- 
eration. Pennsylvania  will  be  so  highly  honored  by  the  pos- 
session within  her  limits  of  this  soldiers'  mausoleum,  and  so 
much  distinguished  among  the  other  States  by  their  contribu- 
tions in  aid  of  so  glorious  a  monument  to  patriotism  and 
humanity,  that  it  becomes  her  duty,  as  it  is  her  melancholy 


16  LETTERS. 

pleasure,  to  yield  in  every  reasonable  way  to  the  wishes  and 
suggestions  of  the  States,  who  join  with  her  in  dedicating  a 
portion  of  her  territory  to  the  solemn  uses  of  a  national  sepul- 
chre. 

The  proper  consecration  of  the  grounds  must  claim  our 
early  attention ;  and,  as  soon  as  we  can  do  so,  our  fellow-pur- 
chasers should  be  invited  to  join  with  us  in  the  performance 
of  suitable  ceremonies  on  the  occasion. 

I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

A.  G.  CURTIN. 

DAVID  WILLS,  Esq. 


GETTYSBURG,  PA.,  September  23,  1863. 
HON.  EDWARD  EVERETT: 

SIR,  —  The  several  States  having  soldiers  in  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  who  fell  at  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  in  July  last, 
gallantly  fighting  for  the  Union,  have  made  arrangements  here 
for  the  exhuming  of  all  their  dead,  and  their  removal  and 
decent  burial  in  a  cemetery  selected  for  that  purpose  on  a 
prominent  part  of  the  battle-field. 

The  design  is  to  biwy  all  in  common,  marking  with  head- 
stones, with  the  proper  inscription,  the  known  dead,  and  to 
erect  a  suitable  monument  to  the  memory  of  all  these  brave 
men,  who  have  thus  sacrificed  their  lives  on  the  altar  of 
their  country. 

This  burial-ground  will  be  consecrated  to  this  sacred  and 
holy  purpose  on  Thursday,  the  23d  day  of  October  next,  with 
appropriate  ceremonies,  and  the  several  States  interested  have 
united  in  the  selection  of  you  to  deliver  the  Oration  on  that 
solemn  occasion.  I  am  therefore  instructed  by  the  Governors 
of  the  different  States  interested  in  this  project  to  invite  you 
cordially  to  join  with  them  in  the  ceremonies,  and  to  deliver 
the  oration  for  the  occasion. 

Hoping  to  have  an  early  and  favorable  reply  from  you, 

I  remain,  Sir,  your  most  obedient  servant, 

DAVID  WILLS, 
Agent  for  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania. 


LETTERS.  17 


BOSTON,  26<A  September,  186-3. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  23d 
instant,  inviting  me,-  on  behalf  of  the  Governors  of  the  States 
interested  in  the  preparation  of  a  cemetery  for  the  soldiers  who 
fell  in  the  great  battles  of  July  last,  to  deliver  an  address  at 
the  consecration.  I  feel  much  complimented  by  this  request, 
and  would  cheerfully  undertake  the  performance  of  a  duty  at 
once  so  interesting  and  honorable.  It  is,  however,  wholly  out 
of  my  power  to  make  the  requisite  preparation  by  the  23d  of 
October.  I  am  under  engagements  which  will  occupy  all  my 
time  from  Monday  next  to  the  12th  of  October,  and,  indeed,  it 
is  doubtful  whether,  during  the  whole  month  of  October,  I 
shall  have  a  day  at  my  command. 

The  occasion  is  one  of  great  importance,  not  to  be  dismissed 
with  a  few  sentimental  or  patriotic  commonplaces.  It  will 
demand  as  full  a  narrative  of  the  events  of  the  three  impor- 
tant days  as  the  limits  of  the  hour  will  admit,  and  some  appro- 
priate discussion  of  the  political  character  of  the  great  struggle, 
of  which  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  is  one  of  the  most  momen- 
tous incidents.  As  it  will  take  me  two  days  to  reach  Gettys- 
burg, and  it  will  be  highly  desirable  that  I  should  have  at  least 
one  day  to  survey  the  battle-field,  I  cannot  safely  name  an 
earlier  time  than  the  19th  of  November. 

Should  such  a  postponement  of  the  day  first  proposed  be 
admissible,  it  will  give  me  great  pleasure  to  accept  the  invita- 
tion. I  remain,  dear  sir,  with  much  respect, 

Very  truly  yours, 

EDWARD  EVERETT. 
DAVID  WILLS,  Esq., 

Agent  for  the  National  Cemetery. 


NOTE.  —  In  compliance  with  Mr.  Everett's  suggestions  as  expressed  in 
the  foregoing  letter,  Thursday,  the  19th  of  November,  was  appointed  for  the 
ceremonial  of  the  consecration. 


18 


LETTERS. 


HEAD-QUARTERS  ARMY  OF  THE  POTOMAC, 

November  13,  1863. 
DAVID  WILLS,  Esq., 

Agent  for  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  etc. : 

SIR,  —  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  invitation 
which,  on  behalf  of  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  and  other 
States  interested,  you  extend  to  me  and  the  officers  and  men 
of  my  command,  to  be  present  on  the  19th  instant  at  the  con- 
secration of  the  burial-place  of  those  who  fell  on  the  field  of 
Gettysburg. 

It  seems  almost  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  that  none  can 
have  a  deeper  interest  in  your  good  work  than  comrades  in 
arms,  bound  in  close  ties  of  long  association  and  mutual  con- 
fidence and  support  with  those  to  whom  you  are  paying  this 
last  tribute  of  respect ;  nor  could  the  presence  of  any  be  more 
appropriate  than  that  of  those  who  stood  side  by  side  in  the 
struggle,  shared  the  peril,  and  the  vacant  places  in  whose 
ranks  bear  sad  testimony  to  the  loss  they  have  sustained. 
But  this  army  has  duties  to  perform  which  will  not  admit 
of  its  being  represented  on  the  occasion  ;  and  it  only  remains 
for  me  in  its  name,  with  deep  and  grateful  feelings,  to  thank 
you  and  those  you  represent  for  your  tender  care  of  its  heroic 
dead,  and  for  your  patriotic  zeal,  which,  in  honoring  the  mar- 
tyr, gives  a  fresh  incentive  to  all  who  do  battle  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  integrity  of  the  government. 
I  am,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

GEORGE  G.  MEADE, 
Major-General  Commanding. 


NEW  YORK,  November  19, 1863. 
DAVID  WILLS,  Esq.,  Agent,  etc. : 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  invi- 
tation, on  the  part  of  the  Governors  of  the  loyal  States,  to  be 
present  at  the  consecration  of  the  Military  Cemetery  at  Get- 
tysburg this  day. 


LETTERS.  19 

Besides  the  determination,  on  account  of  infirmities,  never 
again  to  participate  in  any  public  meeting  or  entertainment,  I 
was  too  sick  at  the  time  to  do  more  than  write  a  short  tele- 
gram in  reply  to  His  Excellency  Governor  Curtin. 

Having  long  lived  with  and  participated  in  the  hardships 
and  dangers  of  our  soldiers,  I  can  never  fail  to  honor 

"  the  brave,  who  sink  to  rest, 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest." 

None  deserve  this  tribute  from  their  countrymen  more  than 
those  who  have  fallen  in  defence  of  the  Constitution  and 
Union  of  the  thirty-four  United  States. 

I  remain  yours 

Most  respectfully, 

WINFIELD  SCOTT. 


BoRDENTOWjf,  N.  J.,  November  21,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  regret  extremely,  that,  in  consequence( 
of  the  invitation  you  did  me  the  honor  to  send  me  remaining 
for  several  days  among  the  advertised  letters  in  the  Philadel- 
phia post-office,  I  was  not  able  to  accept  the  same  by  appear- 
ing in  person  at  the  interesting  consecration  of  the  National 
Cemetery  at  Gettysburg  on  the  nineteenth  of  this  month. 

On  an  occasion  so  solemn,  awakening  every  patriotic  emo- 
tion of  the  human  heart,  I  cannot  but  deplore  that  I  was  not 
able  to  be  present,  to  shed  a  tear  over  the  remains  of  these 
gallant  men,  who  gave  back  their  lives  to  their  God  in  defence 
of  their  country. 

Accept  for  yourself,  my  dear  sir,  and  be  pleased  to  present 
to  the  Committee,  my  thanks  for  your  kind  invitation,  and 
believe  me,  with  great  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES   STEWART. 

To  DAVID  WILLS,  Esq.,  Agent,  etc. 


20  MR.   SEWARD'S   SPEECH. 


TREASURY  DEPARTMENT,  November  16,  1863. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  It  disappoints  me  greatly  to  find  that  im- 
perative public  duties  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  be  present 
at  the  consecration  of  the  grounds  selected  as  the  last  resting- 
place  of  the  soldiers  who  fell  in  battle  for  their  country  at 
Gettysburg.  It  consoles  me  to  think  what  tears  of  mingled 
grief  and  triumph  will  fall  upon  their  graves,  and  what  bene- 
dictions of  the  country  saved  by  their  heroism  will  make  their 
memories  sacred  among  men. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

S.  P.  CHASE. 
DAVID  WILLS,  Esq., 
Agent  for  the  Governors  of  the  States. 


IN  the  afternoon  of  the  18th,  the  President  and  the  dis- 
tinguished personages  accompanying  him  arrived  at  Gettys- 
burg, by  a  special  train.  In  the  course  of  the  evening,  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  State  were  serenaded,  and  the  fol- 
lowing remarks  were  made  by  Mr.  Seward,  in  response  to  the 
call:  — 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  :  I  am  now  sixty  years  old  and  upward  ; 
I  have  been  in  public  life  practically  forty  years  of  that  time, 
and  yet  this  is  the  first  time  that  ever  any  p3Ople  or  commu- 
nity so  near  to  the  border  of  Maryland  was  found  willing  to 
listen  to  my  voice  ;  and  the  reason  was  that  I  saw,  forty  years 
ago,  that  slavery  was  opening  before  this  people  a  graveyard 
that  was  to  be  filled  with  brothers  falling  in  mutual  political 
combat.  I  knew  that  the  cause  that  was  hurrying  the  Union 
into  this  dreadful  strife  was  slavery ;  and  when  during  all  the 
intervening  period  I  elevated  my  voice,  it  was  to  warn  the 
people  to  remove  that  cause  while  they  could  by  constitutional 
means,  and  so  avert  the  catastrophe  of  civil  war  which  has 
fallen  upon  the  nation.  I  am  thankful  that  you  are  willing 


MR.   SEWARD'S   SPEECH. 

to  hear  me  at  last.  I  thank  my  God  that  I  believe  this  strife 
is  going  to  end  in  the  removal  of  that  evil  which  ought  to 
have  been  removed  by  deliberate  councils  and  peaceful  means. 
(Good.)  I  thank  my  God  for  the  hope  that  this  is  the  last 
fratricidal  war  which  will  fall  upon  the  country  which  is 
vouchsafed  to  us  by  Heaven,  —  the  richest,  the  broadest,  the 
most  beautiful,  the  most  magnificent  and  capable  of  a  great 
destiny,  that  has  ever  been  given  to  any  part  of  the  human 
race.  (Applause.)  And  I  thank  him  for  the  hope  that 
when  that  cause  is  removed,  simply  by  the  operation  of  abol- 
ishing it,  as  the  origin  and  agent  of  the  treason  that  is  without 
justification  and  without  parallel,  we  shall  thenceforth  be 
united,  be  only  one  country,  having  only  one  hope,  one  am- 
bition, and  one  destiny.  (Applause.)  To-morrow,  at  least, 
we  shall  feel  that  we  are  not  enemies,  but  that  we  are  friends 
and  brothers,  that  this  Union  is  a  reality,  and  we  shall  mourn 
together  for  the  evil  wrought  by  this  rebellion.  We  are  now- 
near  the  graves  of  the  misguided,  whom  we  have  consigned  to 
their  last  resting-place,  with  pity  for  their  errors,  and  with  the 
same  heart  full  of  grief  with  which  we  mourn  over  a  brother 
by  whose  hand,  raised  in  defence  of  his  government,  that  mis- 
guided brother  perished. 

When  we  part  to-morrow  night,  let  us  remember  that  we 
owe  it  to  our  country  and  to  mankind  that  this  war  shall  have 
for  its  conclusion  the  establishing  of  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic government,  —  the  simple  principle  that  whatever  party, 
whatever  portion  of  the  community,  prevails  by  constitutional 
suffrage  in  an  election,  that  party  is  to  be  respected  and  main- 
tained in  power  until  it  shall  give  place,  on  another  trial  and 
another  verdict,  to  a  different  portion  of  the  people.  If  you 
do  not  do  this,  you  are  drifting  at  once  and  irresistibly  to  the 
very  verge  of  universal,  cheerless,  and  hopeless  anarchy. 
But  with  that  principle  this  government  of  ours  —  the  purest, 
the  best,  the  wisest,  and  the  happiest  in  the  world  —  must  be, 
and,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  practically  will  be,  immortal. 
(Cheers.)  Fellow-citizens,  good-night. 
2* 


ORDER  OF  PROCESSION 

FOR  THE 

CONSECRATION  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY  AT 
GETTYSBURG,  PA., 

ON  THE  19m  OF  NOVEMBER,  1863. 


Military,  under  command  of  Major-General  COUCH. 
Major-General  MEADE  and  Staff,  and  the  Officers  and  Soldiers 

of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

Officers  of  the  Navy  and  Marine  Corps  of  the  United  States. 

Aids.  CHIEF  MARSHAL.  Aids. 

PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

Members  of  the  Cabinet. 
Assistant  Secretaries  of  the  several  Executive  Departments. 

General-in-Chief  of  the  Army,  and  Staff. 
Lieutenant-General  SCOTT  and  Rear- Admiral  STEWART. 

Judges  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 
Hon.  EDWARD  EVERETT,  Orator  of  the  Day,  and  the  Chaplain. 

Governors  of  the  States,  and  their  Staffs. 
Commissioners  of  the  States  on  the  Inauguration  of  the  Cem- 
etery. 

Bearers  with  the  Flags  of  the  States. 
VICE-PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  and  Speaker  of  the 

House  of  Representatives. 

Members  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress. 

Officers  of  the  two  Houses  of  Congress. 

Mayors  of  Cities. 

Gettysburg  Committee  of  Arrangements. 
Officers  and  Members  of  the  United  States  Sanitary  Com- 
mission. 

Committees  of  different  Religious  Bodies. 
United  States  Military  Telegraphic  Corps. 


ORDER   OF  PROCESSION.  23 

Officers  and  Representatives  of  Adams's  Express  Company. 

Officers  of  different  Telegraph  Companies. 

Hospital  Corps  of  the  Army. 

Soldiers'  Relief  Associations. 

Knights  Templar. 

Masonic  Fraternity. 

Independent  Order  of  Odd  Fellows. 

Other  Benevolent  Associations. 
Literary,  Scientific,  and  Industrial  Associations. 

The  Press. 
Officers  and  Member*  of  Loyal  Leagues. 

Fire  Companies. 
Citizens  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania. 

Citizens  of  other  States. 

Citizens  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 

Citizens  of  the  several  Territories. 


PROGRAMME   OF  ARRANGEMENTS 

AND 

ORDER   OF   EXERCISES 

FOB  THE 

CONSECRATION  OF  THE 'NATIONAL  CEMETERY  AT 
GETTYSBURG, 

ON  THE  I&TH   OF  NOVEMBER,   1863. 


THE  military  will  form  in  Gettysburg  at  nine  o'clock,  A.  M., 
on  Carlisle  Street,  north  of  the  square,  its  right  resting  on 
the  square,  opposite  McClellan's  Hotel,  under  the  direction 
of  Major-General  Couch. 

The  State  Marshals  and  Chief  Marshal's  aids  will  assemble 
in  the  public  square  at  the  same  hour. 

All  civic  bodies,  except  the  citizens  of  States,  will  assemble, 
according  to  the  foregoing  printed  programme,  on  York  Street 
at  the  same  hour. 

The  delegation  of  Pennsylvania  citizens  will  form  on  Cham- 
bersburg  Street,  its  right  resting  on  the  square  ;  and  the  other 
citizen  delegations,  in  their  order,  will  form  on  the  same  street, 
in  rear  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation. 

The  Marshals  of  the  States  are  charged  with  the  duty  of 
forming  their  several  delegations  so  that  they  will  assume  their 
appropriate  positions  when  the  main  procession  moves. 

The  head  of  the  column  will  move  at  precisely  ten  o'clock, 

A.  M. 

The  route  will  be  up  Baltimore  Street  to  the  Emmittsburg 
road,  thence  to  the  junction  of  the  Taneytown  road,  thence, 
by  the  latter  road,  to  the  Cemetery,  where  the  military  will 
fbrm  in  line,  as  the  General  in  command  may  order,  for  the 
purpose  of  saluting  the  President  of  the  United  States. 


PROGRAMME  OF  ARRANGEMENTS.        25 

The  military  will  then  close  up,  and  occupy  the  space  on 
the  left  of  the  stand. 

The  civic  procession  will  advance  and  occupy  the  area  in 
front  of  the  stand,  the  military  leaving  sufficient  space  between 
them  and  the  line  of  graves  for  the  civic  procession  to  pass. 

The  ladies  will  occupy  the  right  of  the  stand,  and  it  is 
desirable  that  they  be  upon  the  ground  as  early  as  ten  o'- 
clock. A.  M. 

The  exercises  will  take  place  as  soon  as  the  military  and 
civic  bodies  are  in  position,  as  follows  :  — 

Music,  by  BIRGFIELD'S  Band. 

Prayer,  by  Rev.  T.  H.  STOCKTON,  D.  D. 

Music,  by  the  Marine  Band. 

Oration,  by  Hon.  EDWARD  EVERETT. 

)[rtsic.  Hymn  composed  by  B.  B.  FRENCH,  ESQ. 

Dedicatory  Remarks,  by  the  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Dirge,  sung  by  Choir  selected  for  the  occasion. 

Benediction,  by  Rev.  H.  L.  BAUGHER,  D.  D. 

After  the  benediction  the  procession  will  be  dismissed,  and 
the  State  Marshals  and  special  aids  to  the  Chief  Marshal  will 
form  on  Baltimore  Street,  and  return  to  the  court-house  in 
Gettysburg,  where  a  meeting  of  the  Marshals  will  be  held. 

An  appropriate  salute  will  be  fired  in  Gettysburg  on  the 
day  of  the  celebration,  under  the  direction  of  Major-General 
Couch. 


PRAYER 


REV.   DR.   STOCKTON. 


O  GOD  our  Father,  for  the  sake  of  Thy  Son  our  Saviour, 
inspire  us  with  Thy  Spirit,  and  sanctify  us  to  the  right  fulfil- 
ment of  the  duties  of  this  occasion. 

We  come  to  dedicate  this  new  historic  centre  as  a  National 
Cemetery.  If  all  departments  of  the  one  government  which 
Thou  hast  ordained  over  our  Union,  and  of  the  many  gov- 
ernments which  Thou  hast  subordinated  to  our  Union,  be 
here  represented,  —  if  all  classes,  relations,  and  interests  of  our 
blended  brotherhood  of  people  stand  severally  and  thoroughly 
apparent  in  Thy  presence,  —  we  trust  that  it  is  because  Thou 
hast  called 'us,  that  Thy  blessing  awaits  us,  and  that  Thy 
designs  may  be  embodied  in  practical  results  of  incalculable 
and  imperishable  good. 

And  so,  with  Thy  holy  Apostle,  and  with  the  Church  of 
all  lands  and  ages,  we  unite  in  the  ascription,  "  Blessed  be 
God,  even  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father 
of  mercies,  and  the  God  of  all  comfort,  who  comforteth  us  in 
all  our  tribulation,  that  we  may  be  able  to  comfort  them  which 
are  in  any  trouble,  by  the  comfort  wherewith  we  ourselves  are 
comforted  of  God." 

In  emulation  of  all  angels,  in  fellowship  with  all  saints,  and 
in  sympathy  with  all  sufferers,  in  remembrance  of  Thy  works, 
in  reverence  of  Thy  ways,  and  in  accordance  with  Thy  word, 
we  laud  and  magnify  Thine  infinite  perfections,  Thy  creative 
glory,  Thy  redeeming  grace,  Thy  providential  goodness,  and 
the  progressively  richer  and  fairer  developments  of  Thy  su- 
preme, universal,  and  everlasting  administration. 


PRAYER.  27 

In  behalf  of  all  humanity,  whose  ideal  is  divine,  whose  first 
memory  is  Thine  image  lost,  and  whose  last  hope  is  Thine 
image  restored,  and  especially  of  our  own  nation,  whose  his- 
tory has  been  so  favored,  whose  position  is  so  peerless,  whose 
mission  is  so  sublime,  and  whose  future  is  so  attractive,  we 
thank  Thee  for  the  unspeakable  patience  of  Thy  compassion 
and  the  exceeding  greatness  of  Thy  loving-kindness.  In  con- 
templation of  Eden,  Calvary,  and  Heaven,  of  Christ  in  the 
Garden,  on  the  Cross,  and  on  the  Throne,  nay,  more,  of 
Christ  as  coming  again  in  all-subduing  power  and  glory,  we 
gratefully  prolong  our  homage.  By  this  Altar  of  Sacrifice, 
on  this  Field  of  Deliverance,  on  this  Mount  of  Salvation, 
within  the  fiery  and  bloody  line  of  these  "  munitions  of 
rocks,"  looking  back  to  the  dark  days  of  fear  and  trembling, 
and  to  the  rapture  of  relief  that  came  after,  we  multiply  our 
thanksgivings,  and  confess  our  obligations  to  renew  and  per- 
fect our  personal  and  social  consecration  to  Thy  service  and 
glory. 

Oh,  had  it  not  been  for  God  !  For  lo  !  our  enemies,  they 
came  unresisted,  multitudinous,  mighty,  flushed  with  victory, 
and  sure  of  success.  They  exulted  on  our  mountains,  they 
revelled  in  our  valleys  ;  they  feasted,  they  rested  ;  they  slept, 
they  awaked ;  they  grew  stronger,  prouder,  bolder,  every 
day ;  they  spread  abroad,  they  concentrated  here  ;  they  look- 
ed beyond  this  horizon  to  the  stores  of  wealth,  to  the  haunts 
of  pleasure,  and  to  the  seats  of  power  in  our  capital  and  chief 
cities.  They  prepared  to  cast  the  chain  of  Slavery  around 
the  form  of  Freedom,  binding  life  and  death  together  forever. 
Their  premature  triumph  was  the  mockery  of  God  and  man. 
One  more  victory,  and  all  was  theirs  !  But  behind  these 
hills  was  heard  the  feebler  march  of  a  smaller,  but  still  pur- 
suing host.  Onwai'd  they  hurried,  day  and  night,  for  God 
and  their  country.  Foot-sore,  wayworn,  hungry,  thirsty,  faint, 
—  but  not  in  heart,  —  they  came  to  dare  all,  to  bear  all,  and 
to  do  all  that  is  possible  to  heroes.  And  Thou  didst  sustain 
them!  At  first  they  met  the  blast  on  the  plain,  and  bent 
before  it  like  the  trees  in  a  storm.  But  then,  led  by  Thy 
hand  to  these  hills,  they  took  their  stand  upon  the  rocks  and 
remained  as  firm  and  immovable  as  they.  In  vain  were  they 


PRAYER. 

assaulted.  All  art,  all  violence,  all  desperation,  failed  to  dis- 
lodge them.  Baffled,  bruised,  broken,  their  enemies  recoiled, 
retired,  and  disappeared.  Glory  to  God  for  this  rescue  !  But 
oh,  the  slain  !  In  the  freshness  and  fulness  of  their  young 
and  manly  life,  with  such  sweet  memories  of  father  and 
mother,  brother  and  sister,  wife  and  children,  maiden  and 
friends,  they  died  for  us.  From  the  coasts  beneath  the 
Eastern  star,  from  the  shores  of  Northern  lakes  and  rivers, 
from  the  flowers  of  Western  prairies,  and  from  the  homes 
of  the  Midway  and  the  Border,  they  came  here  to  die  for 
us  and  for  mankind.  Alas,  how  little  we  can  do  for  them  ! 
We  come  with  the  humility  of  prayer,  with  the  pathetic  elo- 
quence of  venerable  wisdom,  with  the  tender  beauty  of  poetry, 
with  v  3  plaintive  harmony  of  music,  with  the  honest  tribute 
of  our  Chief  Magistrate,  and  with  all  this  honorable  attend- 
ance :  but  our  best  hope  is  in  thy  blessing,  O  Lord,  our  God  ! 
O  Father,  bless  us  1 1  Bless  the  bereaved,  whether  present  or 
absent ;  bless  our  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  and  sailors  ;  bless 
all  our  rulers  and  people  ;  bless  our  army  and  navy  ;  bless  the 
efforts  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion  ;  and  bless  all  the 
associations  of  this  day  and  place  and  scene  forever.  As  the 
trees  are  not  dead,  though  their  foliage  is  gone,  so  our  heroes 
are  not  dead,  though  their  forms  have  fallen.  In  their  proper 
personality  they  are  all  with  Thee.  And  the  spirit  of  their 
example  is  here.  It  fills  the  air  ;  it  fills  our  hearts.  And, 
long  as  time  shall  last,  it  will  hover  in  these  skies  and  rest  on 
this*  landscape  ;  and  the  pilgrims  of  our  own  land,  and  from 
all  lands,  will  thrill  with  its  inspiration,  and  increase  and  con- 
firm their  devotion  to  liberty,  religion,  and  God. 

Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven,  hallowed  be  Thy  name. 
Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven.  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  And  forgive  us 
our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors.  Lead  us  not  into  temp- 
tation, but  deliver  us  from  evil.  For  Thine  is  the  kingdom, 
the  power,  and  the  glory,  forever.  Amen. 


ADDRESS. 


STANDING  beneath  this  serene  sky,  overlooking 
these  broad  fields  now  reposing  from  the  labors  of- 
the  waning  year,  the  mighty  Alleghanies  dimly 
towering  before  us,  the  graves  of  our  bi^vthren 
beneath  our  feet,  it  is  with  hesitation  that  I  raise 
my  poor  voice  to  break  the  eloquent  silence  of 
God  and  Nature.  But  the  duty  to  which  you  have 
called  me  must  be  performed ;  —  grant  me,  I  pray 
you,  your  indulgence  and  your  sympathy. 

It  was  appointed  by  law  in  Athens,  that  the 
obsequies  of  the  citizens  who  fell  in  battle  should 
be  performed  at  the  public  expense,  and  in  the 
most  honorable  manner.  Their  bones  were  carefully 
gathered  up  from  the  funeral  pyre,  where  their 
bodies  were  consumed,  and  brought  home  to  the 
city.  There,  for  three  days  before  the  interment, 
they  lay  in  state,  beneath  tents  of  honor,  to  receive 
the  votive  offerings  of  friends  and  relatives,  —  flow- 
ers, weapons,  precious  ornaments,  painted  vases, 
(wonders  of  art,  which  after  two  thousand  years 
adorn  the  museums  of  modern  Europe,)  —  the  last 
tributes  of  surviving  affection.  Ten  coffins  of  fune- 
real cypress  received  the  honorable  deposit,  one  for 
each  of  the  tribes  of  the  city,  and  an  eleventh  in 


30  ADDRESS. 

memory  of  the  unrecognized,  but  not  therefore 
unhonored,  dead,  and  of  those  whose  remains  could 
not  be  recovered.  On  the  fourth  day  the  mournful 
procession  was  formed  :  mothers,  wives,  sisters, 
daughters,  led  the  way,  and  to  them  it  was  per- 
mitted by  the  simplicity  of  ancient  manners  to  utter 
aloud  their  lamentations  for  the  beloved  and  the 
lost;  the  male  relatives  and  friends  of  the  deceased 
followed ;  citizens  and  strangers  closed  the  train. 
Thus  marshalled,  they  moved  to  the  place  of  inter- 
ment in  that  famous  Ceramicus,  the  most  beautiful 
suburb  of  Athens,  which  had  been  adorned  by 
Cimon,  the  son  of  Miltiades,  with  walks  and  foun- 
tains and  columns,  —  whose  groves  were  filled  with 
altars,  shrines,  and  temples,  —  whose  gardens  were 
kept  forever  green  by  the  streams  from  the  neigh- 
boring hills,  and  shaded  with  the  trees  sacred  to 
Minerva  and  coeval  with  the  foundation  of  the 
city,  —  whose  circuit  enclosed 

"  the  olive  grove  of  Academe, 
Plato's  retirement,  where  the  Attic  bird 
Trilled  his  thick-warbled  note  the  summer  long, "  — 

whose  pathways  gleamed  with  the  monuments  of 
the  illustrious  dead,  the  work  of  the  most  consum- 
mate masters  that  ever  gave  life  to  marble.  There, 
beneath  the  overarching  plane-trees,  upon  a  lofty 
stage  erected  for  the  purpose,  it  was  ordained 
that  a  funeral  oration  should  be  pronounced  by 
some  citizen  of  Athens,  in  the  presence  of  the 
assembled  multitude. 


•ADDRESS.  31 

Such  were  the  tokens  of  respect  required  to  be 
paid  at  Athens  to  the  memory  of  those  who  had 
fallen  in  the  cause  of  their  country.  For  those 
alone  who  fell  at  Marathon  a  peculiar  honor  was 
reserved.  As  the  battle  fought  upon  that  immortal 
field  was  distinguished  from  all  others  in  Grecian 
history  for  its  influence  over  the  fortunes  of  Hellas, 
—  as  it  depended  upon  the  event  of  that  day 
whether  Greece  should  live,  a  glory  and  a  light  to 
all  coming  time,  or  should  expire,  like  the  meteor 
of  a  moment;  so  the  honors  awarded  to  its  martyr- 
heroes  were  such  as  were  bestowed  by  Athens  on 
no  other  occasion.  They  alone  of  all  her  sons  were 
entombed  upon  the  spot  which  they  had  forever 
rendered  famous.  Their  names  were  inscribed  upon 
ten  pillars  erected  upon  the  monumental  tumulus 
which  covered  their  ashes,  (where,  after  six  hundred 
years,  they  were  read  by  the  traveller  Pausanias,) 
and  although  the  columns,  beneath  the  hand  of 
time  and  barbaric  violence,  have  long  since  disap- 
peared, the  venerable  mound  still  marks  the  spot 
where  they  fought  and  fell,  — 

"  That  battle-field  where  Persia's  victim-horde 
First  bowed  beneath  the  brunt  of  Hellas'  sword." 

And  shall  I,  fellow-citizens,  who,  after  an  interval 
of  twenty-three  centuries,  a  youthful  pilgrim  from 
the  world  unknown  to  ancient  Greece,  have  wan- 
dered over  that  illustrious  plain,  ready  to  put  off 
the  shoes  from  off  my  feet,  as  one  that  stands  on 
holy  ground,  —  who  have  gazed  with  respectful  emo- 


32  ADDRESS. 

tion  on  the  mound  which  still  protects  the  dust  of 
those  who  rolled  back  the  tide  of  Persian  invasion, 
and  rescued  the  land  of  popular  liberty,  of  letters, 
and  of  arts,  from  the  ruthless  foe, —  stand  unmoved 
over  the  graves  of  our  dear  brethren,  who  so  lately, 
on  three  of  those  all-important  days  which  decide  a 
nation's  history,  —  days  on  whose  issue  it  depended 
whether  this  august  republican  Union,  founded  by 
some  of  the  wisest  statesmen  that  ever  lived,  ce- 
mented with  the  blood  of  some  of  the  purest  patri- 
ots that  ever  died,  should  perish  or  endure, — rolled 
back  the  tide  of  an  invasion,  not  less  unprovoked, 
not  less  ruthless,  than  that  which  came  to  plant 
the  dark  banner  of  Asiatic  despotism  and  slavery 
on  the  free  soil  of  Greece  ?  Heaven  forbid !  And 
could  I  prove  so  insensible  to  every  prompting  of 
patriotic  duty  and  affection,  not  only  would  you, 
fellow-citizens,  gathered  many  of  you  from  distant 
States,  who  have  come  to  take  part  in  these  pious 
offices  of  gratitude,  —  you,  respected  fathers,  breth- 
ren, matrons,  sisters,  who  surround  me, — cry  out  for 
shame,  but  the  forms  of  brave  and  patriotic  men 
who  fill  these  honored  graves  would  heave  with 
indignation  beneath  the  sod. 

We  have  assembled,  friends,  fellow-citizens,  at  the 
invitation  of  the  Executive  of  the  great  central 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  seconded  by  the  Governors 
of  seventeen  other  loyal  States  of  the  Union,  to  pay 
the  last  tribute  of  respect  to  the  brave  men,  who. 
in  the  hard-fought  battles  of  the  first,  second,  and 
third  days  of  July  last,  laid  down  their  lives  for 


ADDRESS.  33 

the  country  on  these  hill  -  sides  and  the  plains 
before  us,  and  whose  remains  have  been  gathered 
into  the  cemetery  which  we  consecrate  this  day. 
As  my  eye  ranges  over  the  fields  whose  sods  were 
so  lately  moistened  by  the  blood  of  gallant  and 
loyal  men,  I  feel,  as  never  before,  how  truly  it  was 
said  of  old  that  it  is  sweet  and  becoming  to  die 
for  one's  country.  I  feel,  as  never  before,  how  justly, 
from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  present  time,  men 
have  paid  the  homage  of  their  gratitude  and  admi- 
ration to  the  memory  of  those  who  nobly  sacrifice 
their  lives,  that  their  fellow-men  may  live  in  safety 
and  in  honor.  And  if  this  tribute  were  ever  due, 
when,  to  whom,  could  it  be  more  justly  paid  than 
to  those  whose  last  resting-place  we  this  day  com- 
mend to  the  blessing  of  Heaven  and  of  men  ? 

For  consider,  my  friends,  what  would  have  been 
the  consequences  to  the  country,  to  yourselves,  and 
to  all  you  hold  dear,  if  those  who  sleep  beneath 
our  feet,  and  their  gallant  comrades  who  survive  to 
serve  their  country  on  other  fields  of  danger,  had 
failed  in  their  duty  on  those  memorable  days.  Con-  * 
sider  what,  at  this  moment,  would  be  the  condition 
of  the  United  States,  if  that  noble  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  instead  of  gallantly  and  for  the  second 
time  beating  back  the  tide  of  invasion  from  Mary- 
land and  Pennsylvania,  had  been  itself  driven  from 
these  well-contested  heights,  thrown  back  in  con- 
fusion on  Baltimore,  or  trampled  down,  discom- 
fited, scattered  to  the  four  winds.  What,  in  that 
sad  event,  would  not  have  been  the  fate  of  the 


34  ADDRESS. 

Monumental  City,  of  Harrisburg,  of  Philadelphia, 
of  Washington,  the  Capital  of  the  Union,  each 
and  every  one  of  which  would  have  lain  at  the 
mercy  of  the  enemy,  accordingly  as  it  might  have 
pleased  him,  spurred  by  passion,  flushed  with  victory, 
and  confident  of  continued  success,  to  direct  his 
course  ? 

For  this  we  must  bear  in  mind,  —  it  is  one  of  the 
great  lessons  of  the  war,  indeed  of  every  war,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  a  people  without  military  or- 
ganization, inhabiting  the  cities,  towns,  and  villages 
of  an  open  country,  including  of  course  the  natural 
proportion  of  non-combatants  of  either  sex  and  of 
every  age,  to  withstand  the  inroad  of  a  veteran 
army.  What  defence  can  be  made  by  the  inhabi- 
tants of  villages  mostly  built  of  wood,  of  cities 
unprotected  by  walls,  nay,  by  a  population  of  men, 
however  high-toned  and  resolute,  whose  aged  par- 
ents demand  their  care,  whose  wives  and  children 
are  clustering  about  them,  against  the  charge  of 
the  war-horse  whose  neck  is  clothed  with  thunder, — 
against  flying  artillery  and  batteries  of  rifled  can- 
non planted  on  every  commanding  eminence,  — 
against  the  onset  of  trained  veterans  led  by  skilful 
chiefs  ?  No,  my  friends,  army  must  be  met  by 
army,  battery  by  battery,  squadron  by  squadron; 
and  the  shock  of  organized  thousands  must  be 
encountered  by  the  firm  breasts  and  valiant  arms 
of  other  thousands,  as  well  organized  and  as  skil- 
fully led.  It  is  no  reproach,  therefore,  to  the  un- 
armed population  of  the  country  to  say,  that  we 


ADDRESS.  00 

owe  it  to  the  brave  men  who  sleep  in  their  beds 
of  honor  before  us,  and  to  their  gallant  surviving 
associates,  not  merely  that  your  fertile  fields,  my 
friends  of  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland,  were  redeemed 
from  the  presence  of  the  invader,  but  that  your 
beautiful  capitals  were  not  given  up  to  threatened 
plunder,  perhaps  laid  in  ashes,  Washington  seized 
by  the  enemy,  and  a  blow  struck  at  the  heart  of 
the  nation. 

Who  that  hears  me  has  forgotten  the  thrill  of 
joy  that  ran  through  the  country  on  the  4th  of 
July,  —  auspicious  day  for  the  glorious  tidings,  and 
rendered  still  more  so  by  the  simultaneous  fall  of 
Vicksburg, — when  the  telegraph  flashed  through  the 
land  the  assurance  from  the  President  of  the  United 
States  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  under  Gen- 
eral Meade,  had  again  smitten  the  invader?  Sure 
I  am,  that,  with  the  ascriptions  of  praise  that  rose 
to  Heaven  from  twenty  millions  of  freemen,  with 
the  acknowledgments  that  breathed  from  patriotic 
lips  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  America, 
to  the  surviving  officers  and  men  who  had  rendered 
the  country  this  inestimable  service,  there  beat  in 
every  loyal  bosom  a  throb  of  tender  and  sorrowful 
gratitude  to  the  martyrs  who  had  fallen  on  the 
sternly  contested  field.  Let  A  nation's  fervent  thanks 
make  some  amends  for  the  toils  and  sufferings  of 
those  who  survive.  Would  that  the  heartfelt  trib- 
ute  could  penetrate  these  honored  graves ! 

In  order  that  we  may  comprehend,  to  their  full 
extent,  our  obligations  to  the  martyrs -and  surviving 


36  ADDRESS. 

heroes  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  let  us  contem- 
plate for  a  few  moments  the  train  of  events,  which 
culminated  in  the  battles  of  the  first  days  of 
July.  Of  this  stupendous  rebellion,  planned,  as  its 
originators  boast,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  ma- 
tured and  prepared  for  during  an  entire  genera- 
tion, finally  commenced  because,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  an  election 
of  President  had  been  effected  without  the  votes  of 
the  South,  (which  retained,  however,  the  control  of 
the  two  other  branches  of  the  government,)  the 
occupation  of  the  national  capital,  with  the  seizure 
of  the  public  archives  and  of  the  treaties  with  for- 
eign powers,  was  an  essential  feature.  This  was  in 
substance,  within  my  personal  knowledge,  admitted, 
in  the  winter  of  1860-61,  by  one  of  the  most  influ- 
ential leaders  of  the  rebellion ;  and  it  was  fondly 
thought  that  this  object  could  be  effected  by  a  bold 
and  sudden  movement  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861. 
There  is  abundant  proof,  also,  that  a  darker  project 
was  contemplated,  if  not  by  the  responsible  chiefs 
of  the  rebellion,  yet  by  nameless  ruffians,  willing  to 
play  a  subsidiary  and  murderous  part  in  the  treason- 
able drama.  It  was  accordingly  maintained  by  the 
Rebel  emissaries  in  England,  in  the  circles  to  which 
they  found  access,  that  the  new  American  Minister 
ought  not,  when  he  arrived,  to  be  received  as  the 
envoy  of  the  United  States,  inasmuch  as  before  that 
time  Washington  would  be  captured,  and  the  capi- 
tal of  the  nation  and  the  archives  and  muniments 
of  the  government  would  be  in  the  possession  of 


ADDRESS.  37 

the  Confederates.  In  full  accordance  also  with  this 
threat,  it  was  declared  by  the  Rebel  Secretary  of 
War,  at  Montgomery,  in  the  presence  of  his  Chief 
and  of  his  colleagues,  and  of  five  thousand  hearers, 
while  the  tidings  of  the  assault  on  Sumter  were 
travelling  over  the  wires  on  that  fatal  12th  of 
April,  1861,  that  before  the  end  of  May  "the  flag 
which  then  flaunted  the  breeze,"  as  he  expressed  it, 
"  would  float  over  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  at  Wash- 
ington." 

At  the  time  this  threat  was  made,  the  rebellion 
was  confined  to  the  cotton-growing  States,  and  it 
was  well  understood  by  them,  that  the  only  hope 
of  drawing  any  of  the  other  slave-holding  States 
into  the  conspiracy  was  in  bringing  about  a  con- 
flict of  arms,  and  "  firing  the  heart  of  the  South " 
by  the  effusion  of  blood.  This  was  declared  by  the 
Charleston  press  to  be  the  object  for  which  Sumter 
was  to  be  assaulted;  and  the  emissaries  sent  from 
Richmond,  to  urge  on  the  unhallowed  work,  gave 
the  promise,  that,  with  the  first  drop  of  blood  that 
should  be  shed,  Virginia  would  place  herself  by  the 
side 'of  South  Carolina. 

In  pursuance  of  this  original  plan  of  the  leaders 
of  the  rebellion,  the  capture  of  Washington  has 
been  continually  had  in  view,  not  merely  for  the 
sake  of  its  public  buildings,  as  the  capital  of  the 
Confederacy,  but  as  the  necessary  preliminary  to 
the  absorption  -of  the  Border  States,  and  for  the 
moral  effect  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  of  possessing 
the  metropolis  of  the  Union. 


38  ADDRESS. 

I  allude  to  these  facts,  not  perhaps  enough  borne 
in  mind,  as  a  sufficient  refutation  of  the  pretence 
on  the  part  of  the  Rebels,  that  the  war  is  one  of 
self-defence,  waged  for  the  right  of  self-government. 
It  is  in  reality  a  war  originally  levied  by  ambitious 
men  in  the  cotton-growing  States,  for  the  purpose 
of  drawing  the  slave-holding  Border  States  into  the 
vortex  of  the  conspiracy,  first  by  sympathy, — which 
in  the  case  of  Southeastern  Virginia,  North  Caro- 
lina, part  of  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas,  succeeded,  — 
and  then  by  force,  and  for  the  purpose  of  subjugat- 
ing Maryland,  Western  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Eastern 
Tennessee,  and  Missouri ;  and  it  is  a  most  extraor- 
dinary fact,  considering  the  clamors  of  the  Rebel 
chiefs  on  the  subject  of  invasion,  that  not  a  soldier 
of  the  United  States  has  entered  the  States  last 
named,  except  to  defend  their  Union-loving  inhabi- 
tants from  the  armies  and  guerillas  of  the  Rebels. 

In  conformity  with  these  designs  on  the  city  of 
Washington,  and  notwithstanding  the  disastrous  re- 
sults of  the  invasion  of  1862?  it  was  determined  by 
the  Rebel  government  last  summer  to  resume  the 
offensive  in  that  direction.  Unable"  to  force  the 
passage  of  the  Rappahannock  where  General  Hooker, 
notwithstanding  the  reverse  at  Chancellorsville  in 
May,  was  strongly  posted,  the  Confederate  general 
resorted  to  strategy.  He  had  two  objects  in  view. 
The  first  was,  by  a  rapid  movement  northward,  and 
by  manoeuvring  with  a  portion  of  his  army  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  to  tempt  Hooker  from 
his  base  of  operations,  thus  leading  him  to  uncover 


ADDRESS.  39 

the  approaches  to  Washington,  to  throw  it  open  to 
a  raid  by  Stuart's  cavalry,  and  to  enable  Lee  himself 
to  cross  the  Potomac  in  the  neighborhood  of  Pooles- 
ville  and  thus  fall  upon  the  capital.  This  plan  of 
operations  was  wholly  frustrated.  The  design  of 
the  Rebel  general  was  promptly  discovered  by  Gen- 
eral Hooker,  and,  moving  with  great  rapidity  from 
Fredericksburg,  he  preserved  unbroken  the  inner 
line,  and  stationed  the  various  corps  of  his  army 
at  all  the  points  protecting  the  approach  to  Wash- 
ington, from  Centreville  up  to  Leesburg.  From 
this  vantage-ground  the  Rebel  general  in  vain  at- 
tempted to  draw  him.  In  the  mean  time,  by  the 
vigorous  operations  of  Pleasanton's  cavalry,  the  cav- 
alry of  Stuart,  though  greatly  superior  in  numbers, 
was  so  crippled  as  to  be  disabled  from  performing 
the  part  assigned  it  in  the  campaign.  In  this  man- 
ner, General  Lee's  first  object,  namely,  the  defeat  of 
Hooker's  army  on  the  south  of  the  Potomac  and  a 
direct  march  on  Washington,  was  baffled. 

The  second  part  of  the  Confederate  plan,  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  undertaken  in  opposition 
to  the  views  of  General  Lee,  was  to  turn  the  dem- 
onstration northward  into  a  real  invasion  of  Mary- 
land and  Pennsylvania,  in  the  hope,  that,  in  this 
way,  General  Hooker  would  be  drawn  to  a  distance 
from  the  capital,  and  that  some  opportunity  would 
occur  of  taking  him  at  disadvantage,  and,  after  de- 
feating his  army,  of  making  a  descent  upon  Balti- 
more and  Washington.  This  part  of  General  Lee's 
plan,  which  was  substantially  the  repetition  of  that 


40  ADDRESS. 

of  1862,  was  not  less  signally  defeated,  with  what 
honor  to  the  arms  of  the  Union  the  heights  on 
which  we  are  this  day  assembled  will  forever  attest. 

Much'  time  had  been  uselessly  consumed  by  the 
Rebel  general  in  his  unavailing  attempts  to  out- 
manoeuvre General  Hooker.  Although  General  Lee 
broke  up  from  Fredericksburg  on  the  3d  of  June, 
it  was  not  till  the  24th  that  the  main  body  of  his 
army  entered  Maryland.  Instead  of  crossing  the 
Potomac,  as  he  had  intended,  east  of  the  Blue 
Eidge,  he  was  compelled  to  do  it  at  Shepherds- 
town  and  Williamsport,  thus  materially  deranging 
his  entire  plan  of  campaign  north  of  the  river. 
Stuart,  who  had  been  sent  with  his  cavalry  to  the 
east  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  to  guard  the  passes  of  the 
mountains,  to  mask  the  movements  of  Lee,  and  to 
harass  the  Union  general  in  crossing  the  river, 
having  been  very  severely  handled  by  Pleasanton 
at  Beverly  Ford,  Aldie,  and  Upperville,  instead  of 
being  able  to  retard  General  Hooker's  advance,  was 
driven  himself  away  from  his  connection  with  the 
army  of  Lee,  and  cut  off  for  a  fortnight  from  all 
communication  with  it,  —  n  circumstance  to  which 
General  Lee,  in  his  report,  alludes  more  than  once, 
with  evident  displeasure.  Let  us  now  rapidly  glance 
at  the  incidents  of  the  eventful  campaign. 

A  detachment  from  Swell's  corps,  under  Jenkins, 
had  penetrated,  on  the  15th  of  June,  as  far  as 
Chambersburg.  This  movement  was  intended  at 
first  merely  as  a  demonstration,  and  as  a  maraud- 
ing expedition  for  supplies.  It  had,  however,  the 


ADDRESS.  41 

salutary  effect  of  alarming  the  country;  and  vigor- 
ous preparations  were  made,  not  only  by  the  Gen- 
eral Government,  but  here  in  Pennsylvania  and  in 
the  sister  States,  to  repel  the  inroad.  After  two 
days  passed  at  Chambersburg,  Jenkins,  anxious  for 
his  communications  with  Ewell,  fell  back  with  his 
plunder  to  Hagerstown.  Here  he  remained  for  sev- 
eral days,  and  then,  having  swept  the  recesses  of  the 
Cumberland  valley,  came  down  upon  the  eastern  flank 
of  the  South  Mountain,  and  pushed  his  marauding 
parties  as  far  as  Waynesboro.  On  the  22d  the 
remainder  of  Swell's  corps  crossed  the  river  and 
moved  up  the  valley.  They  were  followed  on  the 
24th  by  Longstreet  and  Hill,  who  crossed  at  Wil- 
liamsport  and  Shepherdstown,  and,  pushing  up  the 
valley,  encamped  at  Chambersburg  on  the  27th.  In 
this  way  the  whole  Rebel  army,  estimated  at  90,000 
infantry,  upwards  of  10,000  cavalry,  and  4000  or 
5000  artillery,  making  a  total  of  105,000  of  all 
arms,  was  concentrated  in  Pennsylvania. 

Up  to  this  time  no  report  of  Hooker's  move- 
ments had  been  received  by  General  Lee,  who,  hav- 
ing been  deprived  of  his  cavalry,  had  no  means  of 
obtaining  information.  Rightly  judging,  however, 
that  no  time  would  be  lost  by  the  Union  army  in 
the  pursuit,  in  order  to  detain  it  on  the  eastern 
side  of  the  mountains  in  Maryland  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  thus  preserve  his  communications  by  the 
way  of  Williamsport,  he  had,  before  his  own  arrival 
at  Chambersburg,  directed  Ewell  to  send  detach- 
ments from  his  corps  to  Carlisle  and  York.  The 


42  ADDRESS. 

latter  detachment,  under  Early,  passed  through  this 
place  on  the  26th  of  June.  You  need  not,  fellow- 
citizens  of  Gettysburg,  that  I  should  recall  to  you 
those  moments  of  alarm  and  distress,  precursors  as 
they  were  of  the  more  trying  scenes  which  were 
so  soon  to  follow. 

As  soon  as  General  Hooker  perceived  that  the 
advance  of  the  Confederates  into  the  Cumberland 
valley  was  not  a  mere  feint  to  draw  him  away 
from  Washington,  he  moved  rapidly  in  pursuit. 
Attempts,  as  we  have  seen,  were  made  to  harass 
and  retard  his  passage  across  the  Potomac.  These 
attempts  were  not  only  altogether  unsuccessful,  but 
were  so  unskilfully  made  as  to  place  the  entire  Fed- 
eral army  between  the  cavalry  of  Stuart  and  the 
army  of  Lee.  While  the  latter  was  massed  in  the 
Cumberland  valley,  Stuart  was  east  of  the  mountains, 
with  Hooker's  army  between,  and  Gregg's  cavalry 
in  close  pursuit.  Stuart  was  accordingly  compelled 
to  force  a  march  northward,  which  was  destitute 
of  strategical  character,  and  which  deprived  his 
chief  of  all  means  of  obtaining  intelligence. 

Not  a  moment  had  been  lost  by  General  Hooker 
in  the  pursuit  of  Lee.  The  day  after  the  Rebel 
army  entered  Maryland,  the  Union  army  crossed 
the  Potomac  at  Edwards'  Ferry,  and  by  the  28th  of 
June  lay  between  Harper's  Ferry  and  Frederick. 
The  force  of  the  enemy  on  that  day  was  partly  at 
Chambersburg,  and  partly  moving  on  the  Cashtown 
road  in  the  direction  of  Gettysburg,  while  the  de- 
tachments from  Swell's  corps,  of  which  mention  has 


ADDRESS.  43 

been  made,  had  reached  the  Susquehannah  opposite 
Harrisburg  and  Columbia.  That  a  great  battle 
must  soon  be  fought,  no  one  could  doubt;  but  in 
the  apparent  and  perhaps  real  absence  of  plan  on 
the  part  of  Lee,  it  was  impossible  to  foretell  the 
precise  scene  of  the  encounter.  Wherever  fought, 
consequences  the  most  momentous  hung  upon  the 
result. 

In  this  critical  and  anxious  state  of  affairs,  Gen- 
eral Hooker  was  relieved,  and  General  Meade  was 
summoned  to  the  chief  command  of  the  army.  It 
appears  to  my  unmilitary  judgment  to  reflect  the 
highest  credit  upon  him,  upon  his  predecessor,  and 
upon  the  corps  commanders  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  that  a  change  could  take  place  in  the 
chief  command  of  so  large  a  force  on  the  eve  of  a 
general  battle,  —  the  various  corps  necessarily  mov- 
ing on  lines  somewhat  divergent,  and  all  in  igno- 
rance of  the  enemy's  intended  point  of  concentra- 
tion,—  and  that  not  an  hour's  hesitation  should 
ensue  in  the  advance  of  any  portion  of  the  entire 
army. 

Having  assumed  the  chief  command  on  the  28th, 
General  Meade  directed  his  left  wing,  under  Rey- 
nolds, upon  Emmittsburg  and  his  right  upon  New 
Windsor,  leaving  General  French  with  11,000  men 
to  protect  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  and 
convoy  the  public  property  from  Harper's  Ferry  to 
Washington.  Buford's  cavalry  was  then  at  this 
place,  and  Kilpatrick's  at  Hanover,  where  he  en- 
countered and  defeated  the  rear  of  Stuart's  cavalry, 


44  ADDRESS. 

who  was  roving  the  country  in  search  of  the  main 
army  of  Lee.  On  the  Rebel  side,  Hill  had  reached 
Fayetteville  on  the  Cashtown  road  on  the  28th, 
and  was  followed  on  the  same  road  by  Longstreet 
on  the  29th.  The  eastern  side  of  the  mountain,  as 
seen  from  Gettysburg,  was  lighted  up  at  night  by 
the  camp-fires  of  the  enemy's  advance,  and  the  coun- 
try swarmed  with  his  foraging  parties.  It  was  now 
too  evident  to  be  questioned,  that  the  thunder- 
cloud, so  long  gathering  blackness,  would  soon  burst 
on  some  part  of  the  devoted  vicinity  of  Gettysburg. 
The  30th  of  June  was  a  day  of  important  prepa- 
ration. At  half-past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning 
General  Buford  passed  through  Gettysburg,  upon  a 
reconnoissance  in  force,  with  his  cavalry,  upon  the 
Chambersburg  road.  The  information  obtained  by 
him  was  immediately  communicated  to  General  Rey- 
nolds, who  was,  in  consequence,  directed  to  occupy 
Gettysburg.  That  gallant  officer  accordingly,  with 
the  First  Corps,  marched  from  Emmittsburg  to  within 
six  or  seven  miles  of  this  place,  and  encamped  on 
the  right  bank  of  Marsh's  Creek.  Our  right  wing, 
meantime,  was  moved  to  Manchester.  On  the  same 
day  the  corps  of  Hill  and  Longstreet  were  pushed 
still  farther  forward  on  the  Chambersburg  road,  and 
distributed  in  the  vicinity  of  JMarsh's  Creek,  while 
a  reconnoissance  was  made  by  the  Confederate  Gen- 
eral Pettigrew  up  to  a  very  short  distance  from 
this  place.  Thus  at  nightfall  on  the  30th  of  June 
the  greater  part  of  the 'Rebel  force  was  concentrated 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  two  corps  of  the 


ADDRESS.  45 

Union  army,  the  former  refreshed  by  two  days 
passed  in  comparative  repose  and  deliberate  prepa- 
ration for  the  encounter,  the  latter  separated  by  a 
march  of  one  or  two  days  from  their  supporting 
corps,  and  doubtful  at  what  precise  point  they  were 
to  expect  an  attack. 

And  now  the  momentous  day,  a  day  to  be  for- 
ever remembered  in  the  annals  of  the  country, 
arrived.  Early  in  the  morning  on  the  1st  of  July 
the  conflict  began.  I  need  not  say  that  it  would 
be  impossible  for  me  to  comprise,  within  the  limits 
of  the  hour,  such  a  narrative  as  would  do  anything 
like  full  justice  to  the  all-important  events  of  these 
three  great  days,  or  to  the  merit  of  the  brave  offi- 
cers and  men  of  every  rank,  of  every  arm  of  the 
service,  and  of  every  loyal  State,  who  bore  their 
part  in  the  tremendous  struggle,  —  alike  those  who 
nobly  sacrificed  their  lives  for  their  country,  and 
those  who  survive,  many  of  them  scarred  with  hon- 
orable wounds,  the  objects  of  our  admiration  and 
gratitude.  The  astonishingly  minute,  accurate,  and 
graphic  accounts  contained  in  the  journals  of  the 
day,  prepared  from  personal  observation  by  report- 
ers who  witnessed  the  scenes  and  often  shared  the 
perils  which  they  describe,  and  the  highly  valuable 
"Notes"  of  Professor  Jacobs  of  the  University  in 
this  place,  to  which  I  am  greatly  indebted,  will 
abundantly  supply  the  deficiency  of  my  necessarily 
too  condensed  statement.* 

*  Besides  the  sources  of  information  mentioned  in  the  text,  I  have  been 
kindly  favored  with  a  memorandum  of  the  operations  of  the  three  days 
4* 


46  ADDRESS. 

General   Reynolds,  on  arriving   at  Gettysburg   in 
the  morning  of  the  1st,  found  Buford  with  his  cav- 

drawn  up  for  me  by  direction  of  Major-General  Meade,  (anticipating  the 
promulgation  of  his  official  report,)  by  one  of  his  aids,  Colonel  Theodore 
Lyman,  from  whom  also  I  have  received  other  important  communications 
relative  to  the  campaign.    I  have  received  very  valuable  documents  rela- 
tive to  the1  battle  from  Major-General  Halleck,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
army,  and  have  been  much  assisted  in  drawing  up  the  sketch  of  the  cam- 
paign, by  the  detailed  reports,  kindly  transmitted  to  me  in  manuscript  from 
the  Adjutant-General's  office,  of  the  movements  of  every  corps  of  the  army, 
for  each  day,  after  the  breaking  up  from  Fredericksburg  commenced.     I 
have  derived  much  assistance  from  Colonel  John  B.  Bachelder's  oral  expla- 
nations of  his  beautiful  and  minute  drawing  (about  to  be  engraved)  of  the 
field  of  the  three  days'  struggle.     With  the  information  derived  from  these 
sources  I  have  compared  the  statements  in  General  Lee's  official  report  of 
the  campaign,  dated  31st  July,  1863,  a  well-written  article,  purporting  to 
be  an  account  of  the  three  days'  battle,  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer  of  the 
22d  of  July,  and  the  article  on  "  The  Battle  of  Gettysburg  and  the  Cam- 
paign of  Pennsylvania,"  by  an  officer,  apparently  a  colonel  in  the  British 
army,  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  for  September.     The  value  of  the  infor- 
mation contained  in  this  last  essay  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  remark 
under  date  27th  of  June,  that  "private  property  is  to  be  rigidly  protected," 
with  the  statement  in  the  next  sentence  but  one,  that  "  all  the  cattle  and 
farm-horses  having  been  seized  by  Ewell,  farm  labor  had  come  to  a  com- 
plete stand-still."     He  also,  under  date  of  4th  July,  speaks  of  Lee's  retreat 
being  encumbered  by  "  E well's  immense  train  of  plunder."     This  writer 
informs  us,  that,  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  July,  he  heard  "  reports  coming 
in  from  the  different  Generals  that  the  enemy  [Meade's  army]  was  retir- 
ing, and  had  been  doing  so  all  day  long."     At  a  consultation  at  head-quar- 
ters on  the  6th,  between  Generals  Lee,  Longstreet,  Hill,  and  Wilcox,  this 
writer  was  told  by  some  one,  whose  name  he  prudently  leaves  in  blank,  that 
the  army  had  no  intention  at  present  of  retreating  for  good,  and  that  some 
of  the  enemy's  despatches  had  been  intercepted,  in  which  the  following 
words  occur  :  "  The  noble,  but  unfortunate  Army  of  the  Potomac  has  again 
been  obliged  to  retreat  before  superior  numbers ! "     He  does  not  appear  to 
be  aware,  that,  in  recording  these  wretched  expedients,  resorted  to  in  order 
to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  Lee's  army,  he  furnishes  the  most  complete  refu- 
tation of  his  own  account  of  its  good  condition.     I  much  regret  that  Gen- 
eral Meade's  official  report  was  not  published  in  season  to  enable  me  to 


ADDRESS.  47 

airy  warmly  engaged  with  the  enemy,  whom  he  held 
most  gallantly  in  check.  Hastening  himself  to  the 
front,  General  Reynolds  directed  his  men  to  be 
moved  over  the  fields  from  the  Emmittsburg  road, 
in  front  of  McMillan's  and  Dr.  Schmucker's,  under 
cover  of  the  Seminary  Ridge.  Without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  he  attacked  the  enemy,  at  the  same 
time  sending  orders  to  the  Eleventh  Corps  (Gen- 
eral Howard's)  to  advance  as  promptly  as  possible. 
General  Reynolds  immediately  found  himself  engaged 
with  a  force  which  greatly  outnumbered  his  own, 
and  had  scarcely  made  his  dispositions  for  the  ac- 
tion when  he  fell,  mortally  wounded,  at  the  head 
of  his  advance.  The  command  of  the  First  Corps 
devolved  on  General  Doubleday,  and  that  of  the 
field  on  General  Howard,  who  arrived  at  11.30  with 
Schurz's  and  Barlow's  divisions  of  the  Eleventh 
Corps,  the  latter  of  whom  received  a  severe  wound. 
Thus  strengthened,  the  advantage  of  the  battle  was 
for  some  time  on  our  side.  The  attacks  of  the 
Rebels  were  vigorously  repulsed  by  Wadsworth's 
division  of  the  First  Corps,  and  a  large  number  of 
prisoners,  including  General  Archer,  were  captured. 
At  length,  however,  the  continued  reinforcement  of 
the  Confederates  from  the  main  body  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  by  the  divisions  of  Rodes  and  Early, 
coming  down  by  separate  lines  from  Heidlersberg 
and  taking  post  on  our  extreme  right,  turned  the 

take  full  advantage  of  it,  in  preparing  the  brief  sketch  of  the  battles  of  the 
three  days  contained  in  this  Address.  It  reached  me  but  the  morning 
before  it  was  sent  to  the  press. 


48  ADDRESS. 

fortunes  of  the  day.  Our  army,  after  contesting 
the  ground  for  five  hours,  was  obliged  to  yield  to 
the  enemy,  whose  force  outnumbered  them  two  to 
one ;  and  toward  the  close  of  the  afternoon  General 
Howard  deemed  it  prudent  to  withdraw  the  two 
corps  to  the  heights  where  we  are  now  assembled. 
The  greater  part  of  the  First  Corps  passed  through 
the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  reached  the  hill 
without  serious  loss  or  molestation.  The  Eleventh 
Corps  and  portions  of  the  First,  not  being  aware 
that  the  enemy  had  already  entered  the  town  from 
the  north,  attempted  to  force  their  way  through 
Washington  and  Baltimore  Streets,  which,  in  the 
crowd  and  confusion  of  the  scene,  they  did  with  a 
heavy  loss  in  prisoners. 

General  Howard  was  not  unprepared  for  this  turn 
in  the  .fortunes  of  the  day.  He  had  in  the  course 
of  the  morning  caused  Cemetery  HiU  to  be  occu- 
pied by  General  Steinwehr,  with  the  second  division 
of  the  Eleventh  Corps.  About  the  time  of  the 
withdrawal  of  our  troops  to  the  hill,  General  Han- 
cock arrived,  having  been  sent  by  General  Meade, 
on  hearing  of  the  death  of  Reynolds,  to  assume  the 
command  of  the  field  till  he  himself  could  reach 
the  front.  In  conjunction  with  General  Howard, 
General  Hancock  immediately  proceeded  to  post 
troops  and  to  repel  an  attack  on  our  right  flank. 
This  attack  was  feebly  made  and  promptly  repulsed. 
At  nightfall,  our  troops  on  the  hill,  who  had  so  gal- 
lantly sustained  themselves  during  the  toil  and  peril 
of  the  day,  were  cheered  by  the  arrival  of  General 


ADDRESS.  49 

Slocum  with  the  Twelfth  Corps  and  of  General 
Sickles  with  a  part  of  the  Third. 

Such  was  the  fortune  of  the  first  day,  commencing 
with  decided  success  to  our  arms,  followed  by  a 
check,  but  ending  in  the  occupation  of  this  all-im- 
portant position.  To  you,  fellow-citizens  of  Gettys- 
burg, I  need  not  attempt  to  portray  the  anxieties 
of  the  ensuing  night.  Witnessing  as  you  had  done 
with  sorrow  the  withdrawal  of  our  army  through 
your  streets,  with  a  considerable  loss  of  prisoners, — 
mourning  as  you  did  over  the  brave  men  who  had 
fallen,  —  shocked  with  the  wide-spread  desolation 
around  you,  of  which  the  wanton  burning  of  the 
Harman  House  had  given  the  signal, — ignorant  of 
the  near  approach  of  General  Meade,  you  passed 
the  weary  hours  of  the  night  in  painful  expectation. 

Long  before  the  dawn  of  the  2d  of  July,  the  new 
Commander-in-Chief  had  reached  the  ever-memorable 
field  of  service  and  glory.  Having  received  intelli- 
gence of  the  events  in  progress,  and  informed  by 
the  reports  of  Generals  Hancock  and  Howard  of 
the  favorable  character  of  the  position,  he  deter- 
mined to  give  battle  to  the  enemy  at  this  point. 
He  accordingly  directed  the  remaining  corps  of  the 
army  to  concentrate  at  Gettysburg  with  all  possible 
expedition,  and  breaking  up  his  head-quarters  at 
Taneytown  at  10  P.  M.,  he  arrived  at  the  front  at 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  2d  of  July.  Few 
were  the  moments  given  to  sleep,  during  the  rapid 
watches  of  that  brief  midsummer's  night,  by  officers 
or  men,  though  half  of  our  troops  were  exhausted 


50  ADDRESS. 

by  the  conflict  of  the  day,  and  the  residue  wearied 
by  the  forced  marches  which  had  brought  them  to 
the  rescue.  The  full  moon,  veiled  by  thin  clouds, 
shone  down  that  night  on  a  strangely  unwonted 
scene.  The  silence  of  the  grave-yard  was  broken 
by  the  heavy  tramp  of  armed  men,  by  the  neigh 

* 

of  the  war-horse,  the  harsh  rattle  of  the  wheels 
of  artillery  hurrying  to  their  stations,  and  all  the 
indescribable  tumult  of  preparation.  The  various 
corps  of  the  army,  as  they  arrived,  were  moved 
to  their  positions,  on  the  spot  where  we  are  as- 
sembled and  the  ridges  that  extend  southeast  and 
southwest ;  batteries  were  planted,  and  breastworks 
thrown  up.  The  Second  and  Fifth  Corps,  with  the 
rest  of  the  Third,  had  reached  the  ground  by  seven 
o'clock,  A.  M.  ;  but  it  was  not  till  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  that  Sedgwick  arrived  with  the  Sixth 
Corps.  He  had  marched  thirty-four  miles  since 
nine  o'clock  on  the  evening  before.  It  was  only  on 
his  arrival  that  the  Union  army  approached  an 
equality  of  numbers  with  that  of  the  Rebels,  who 
were  posted  upon  the  opposite  and  parallel  ridge, 
distant  from  a  mile  to  a  mile  and  a  half,  overlap- 
ping our  position  on  either  wing,  and  probably 
exceeding  by  ten  thousand  the  army  of  General 
Meade.* 

*  In  the  Address  as  originally  prepared,  judging  from  the  best  sources 
of  information  then  within  my  reach,  I  assumed  the  equality  of  the  two 
armies  on  the  2d  and  3d  of  July.  Subsequent  inquiry  has  led  me  to  think 
that  I  underrated  somewhat  the  strength  of  Lee's  force  at  Gettysburg, 
and  I  have  corrected  the  text  accordingly.  General  Halleck,  however, 
in  his  official  report  accompanying  the  President's  messages,  states  the 
armies  to  have  been  equal. 


ADDRESS.  51 

And  here  I  cannot  but  remark  on  the  providen- 
tial inaction  of  the  Kebel  army.  Had  the  contest 
been  renewed  by  it  at  daylight  on  the  2d  of  July, 
with  the  First  and  Eleventh  Corps  exhausted  by 
the  battle  and  the  retreat,  the  Third  and  Twelfth 
weary  from  their  forced  march,  and  the  Second, 
Fifth,  and  Sixth  not  yet  arrived,  nothing  but  a  mir- 
acle could  have  saved  the  army  from  a  great  disas- 
ter. Instead  of  this,  the  day  dawned,  the  sun  rose, 
the  cool  hours  of  the  morning  passed,  the  forenoon 
and  a  considerable  part  of  the  afternoon  wore  away, 
without  the  slightest  aggressive  movement  on  the 
part  of  the  enemy.  Thus  time  was  given  for  half 
of  our  forces  to  arrive  and  take  their  place  in  the 
lines,  while  the  rest  of  the  army  enjoyed  a  much- 
needed  half-day's  repose. 

At  length,  between  three  and  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  the  work  of  death  began.  A  signal-gun 
from  the  hostile  batteries  was  followed  by  a  tremen- 
dous cannonade  along  the  Rebel  lines,  and  this  by 
a  heavy  advance  of  infantry,  brigade  after  brigade, 
commencing  on  the  enemy's  right  against  the  left 
of  our  army,  and  so  onward  to  the  left  centre.  A 
forward  movement  of  General  Sickles,  to  gain  a 
commanding  position  from  which  to  repel  the  Rebel 
attack,  drew  upon  him  a  destructive  fire  from  the 
enemy's  batteries,  and  a  furious  assault  from  Long- 
street's  and  Hill's  advancing  troops.  After  a  brave 
resistance  on  the  part  of  his  corps,  he  was  forced 
back,  himself  falling  severely  wounded.  This  was 
the  critical  moment  of  the  second  day;  but  the 


ADDRESS. 

Fifth  and  a  part  of  the  Sixth  Corps,  with  portions 
of  the  First  and  Second,  were  promptly  brought  to 
the  support  of  the  Third.  The  struggle  was  fierce 
and  murderous,  but  by  sunset  our  success  was  deci- 
sive, and  the  enemy  was  driven  back  in  confusion. 
The  most  important  service  was  rendered  toward  the 
clojse  of  the  day,  in  the  memorable  advance  between 
Round  Top  and  Little  Eound  Top,  by  General  Craw- 
ford's division  of  the  Fifth  Corps,  consisting  of  two 
brigades  of  the  Pennsylvania  Reserves,  of  which  one 
company  was  from  this  town  and  neighborhood. 
The  Rebel  force  was  driven  back  with  great  loss  in 
killed  and  prisoners.  At  eight  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing a  desperate  attempt  was  made  by  the  enemy 
to  storm  the  position  of  the  Eleventh  Corps  on 
Cemetery  Hill ;  but  here,  too,  after  a  terrible  conflict, 
he  was  repulsed  with  immense  loss.  Ewell,  on  our 
extreme  right,  which  had  been  weakened  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  troops  sent  over  to  support  our 
left,  had  succeeded  in  gaming  a  foothold  within  a 
portion  of  our  lines,  near  Spangler's  Spring.  This 
was  the  only  advantage  obtained  by  the  Rebels  to 
compensate  them  for  the  disasters  of  the  day,  and 
of  this,  as  we  shall  see,  they  were  soon  deprived. 

Such  was  the  result  of  the  second  act  of  this 
eventful  drama, — a  day  hard  fought,  and  at  one 
moment  anxious,  but,  with  the  exception  of  the 
slight  reverse  just  named,  crowned  with  dearly 
earned  but  uniform  success  to  our  arms,  auspicious 
of  a  glorious  termination  of  the  final  struggle.  On 
these  good  omens  the  night  fell. 


ADDRESS.  53 

In  the  course  of  the  night,  General  Geary  re- 
turned to  his  position  on  the  right,  from  which  he 
had  hastened  the  day  before  to  strengthen  the  Third 
Corps.  He  immediately  engaged  the  enemy,  and, 
after  a  sharp  and  decisive  action,  drove  them  out 
of  our  lines,  recovering  the  ground  which  had  been 
lost  on  the  preceding  day.  A  spirited  contest  was 
kept  up  all  the  morning  on  this  part  of  the  line ; 
but  General  Geary,  reinforced  by  Wheaton's  bri- 
gade of  the  Sixth  Corps,  maintained  his  position, 
and  inflicted  very*  severe  losses  on  the  Rebels. 

Such  was  the  cheering  commencement  of  the  third 
day's  work,  and  with  it  ended  all  serious  attempts 
of  the  enemy  on  our  right.  As  on  the  preceding 
day,  his  efforts  were  now  mainly  directed  against 
our  left  centre  and  left  wing.  From  eleven  till 
half-past  one  o'clock,  all  was  still, —  a  solemn  pause 
of  preparation,  as  if  both  armies  were  nerving  them- 
selves for  the  supreme  effort.  At  length  the  awful 
silence,  more  terrible  than  the  wildest  tumult  of  bat- 
tle, was  broken  by  the  roar  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pieces  of  artillery  from  the  opposite  ridges, 
joining  in  a  cannonade  of  unsurpassed  violence,  — 
the  Rebel  batteries  along  two  thirds  of  their  line 
pouring  their  fire  upon  Cemetery  Hill,  and  the 
centre  and  left  wing  of  our  army.  Having  at- 
tempted in  this  way  for  two  hours,  but  without  suc- 
cess, to  shake  the  steadiness  of  our  lines,  the  enemy 
rallied  his  forces  for  a  last  grand  assault.  Their 
attack  was  principally  directed  against  the  position 
of  our  Second  Corps.  Successive  lines  of  Rebel 


54  ADDRESS. 

infantry  moved  forward  with  equal  spirit  and  stead- 
iness from  their  cover  on  the  wooded  crest  of  Sem- 
inary Ridge,  crossing  the  intervening  plain,  and, 
supported  right  and  left  by  their  choicest  brigades, 
charged  furiously  up  to  our  batteries.  Our  own 
brave  troops  of  the  Second  Corps,  supported  by 
Doubleday's  division  and  Stannard's  brigade  of  the 
First,  received  the  shock  with  firmness ;  the  ground 
on  both  sides  was  long  and  fiercely  contested,  and 
was  covered  with  the  killed  and  the  wounded  ;  the 
tide  of  battle  flowed  and  ebbed'  across  the  plain, 
till,  after  "  a  determined  and  gallant  struggle,"  as 
it  is  pronounced  by  General  Lee,  the  Rebel  ad- 
vance, consisting  of  two  thirds  of  Hill's  corps  and 
the  whole  of  Longstreet's,— including  Pickett's  divis- 
ion, the  elite  of  his  corps,  which  had  not  yet  been 
under  fire,  and  was  now  depended  upon  to  decide 
the  fortune  of  this  last  eventful  day,  —  was  driven 
back  with  prodigious  slaughter,  discomfited  and 
broken.  While  these  events  were  in  progress  at  our 
left  centre,  the  enemy  was  driven,  with  a  consider- 
able loss  of  prisoners,  from  a  strong  position  on  our 
extreme  left,  from  which  he  was  annoying  our  force 
on  Little  Round  Top.  In  the  terrific  assault  on 
our  centre,  Generals  Hancock  and  Gibbon  were 
wounded.  In  the  Rebel  army,  Generals  Armistead, 
Kemper,  Pettigrew,  and  Trimble  were  wounded, 
the  first  named  mortally,  the  latter  also  made  pris- 
oner, General  Garnett  was  killed,  and  thirty-five 
hundred  officers  and  men  made  prisoners. 

These   were   the   expiring   agonies    of   the   three 


ADDRESS.  55 

days'  conflict,  and  with  them  the  battle  ceased.  It 
was  fought  by  the  Union  army  with  courage  and 
skill,  from  the  first  cavalry  skirmish  on  Wednesday 
morning  to  the  fearful  rout  of  the  enemy  on  Friday 
afternoon,  by  every  arm  and  every  rank  of  the  ser- 
vice, by  officers  and  men,  by  cavalry,  artillery,  and 
infantry.  The  superiority  of  numbers  was  with  the 
enemy,  who  were  led  by  the  ablest  commanders  in 
their  service;  and  if  the  Union  force  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  strong  position,  the  Confederates  had 
that  of  choosing  time  and  place,  the  prestige  of  for- 
mer victories  over  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and 
of  the  success  of  the  first  day.  Victory  does  not 
always  fall  to  the  lot  of  those  who  deserve  it ;  but 
that  so  decisive  a  triumph,  under  circumstances  like 
these,  was  gained  by  our  troops,  I  would  ascribe, 
under  Providence,  to  the  spirit  of  exalted  patriot- 
ism that  animated  them,  and  a  consciousness  that 
they  were  fighting  in  a  righteous  cause. 

Ah1  hope  of  defeating  our  army,  and  securing 
what  General  Lee  calls  "  the  valuable  results "  of 
such'  an  achievement,  having  vanished,  he  thought 
only  of  rescuing  from  destruction  the  remains  of  his 
shattered  forces.  In  killed,  wounded,  and  missing, 
he  had,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  suffered  a  loss 
of  about  37,000  men,  —  rather  more  than  a  third 
of  the  army  with  which  he  is  supposed  to  have 
marched  into  Pennsylvania.  Perceiving  that  his 
only  safety  was  in  rapid  retreat,  he  commenced 
withdrawing  his  troops  at  daybreak  on  the  4th, 
throwing  up  field-works  in  front  of  our  left,  which, 


56  ADDRESS. 

assuming  the  appearance  of  a  new  position,  were 
intended  probably  to  protect  the  rear  of  his  army 
in  their  retreat.  That  day  —  sad  celebration  of  the 
4th  of  July  for  an  army  of  Americans  —  was  passed 
by  him  in  hurrying  off  his  trains.  By  nightfall,  the 
main  army  was  in  full  retreat  on  the  Cashtown  and 
Fairfield  roads,  and  it  moved  with  such  precipita- 
tion, that,  short  as  the  nights  were,  by  daylight  the 
following  morning,  notwithstanding  a  heavy  rain, 
the  rear-guard  had  left  its  position.  The  struggle 
of  the  last  two  days  resembled  in  many  respects 
the  Battle  of  Waterloo ;  and  if,  in  the  evening  of 
the  third  day,  General  Meade,  like  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  had  had  the  assistance  of  a  powerful 
auxiliary  army  to  take  up  the  pursuit,  the  rout  of  , 
the  Rebels  would  have  been  as  complete  as  that  of 
Napoleon. 

Owing  to  the  circumstance  just  named,  the  in- 
tentions of  the  enemy  were  not  apparent  on  the 
4th.  The  moment  his  retreat  was  discovered,  the 
following  morning,  he  was  pursued  by  our  cavalry 
on  the  Cashtown  road  and  through  the  Emmittsburg 
and  Monterey  passes,  and  by  Sedgwick's  corps  on 
the  Fairfield  road.  His  rear-guard  was  briskly  at- 
tacked at-  Fairfield ;  a  great  number  of  wagons  and 
ambulances  were  captured  in  the  passes  of  the 
mountains ;  the  country  swarmed  with  his  strag- 
glers, and  his  wounded  were  literally  emptied  from 
the  vehicles  containing  them  into  the  farm-houses 
on  the  road.  General  Lee,  in  his  report,  makes 
repeated  mention  of  the  Union  prisoners  whom  he 


ADDRESS.  57 

conveyed  into  Virginia,  somewhat  overstating  their 
number.  He  states,  also,  that  "  such  of  his  wounded 
as  were  in  a  condition  to  be  removed"  were  for- 
warded to  Williamsport.  He  does  not  mention  that 
the  number  of  his  wounded  not  removed,  and  left  to 
the  Christian  care  of  the  victors,  was  7540,  not  one 
of  whom  failed  of  any  attention  which  it  was  pos- 
sible, under  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  to  afford 
them,  not  one  of  whom,  certainly,  has  been  put 
upon  Libby-prison  fare,  —  lingering  death  by  star- 
vation. Heaven  forbid,  however,  that  we  should 
claim  any  merit  for  the  exercise  of  common  hu- 
manity. 

Under  the  protection  of  the  mountain -ridge, 
whose  narrow  passes  are  easily  held  even  by  a  re- 
treating army,  General  Lee  reached  Williamsport  in 
safety,  and  took  up  a  strong  position  opposite  to 
that  place.  General  Meade  necessarily  pursued  with 
the  main  army  by  a  flank-movement  through  Mid- 
dletown,  Turner's  Pass  having  been  secured  by  Gen- 
eral French.  Passing  through  the  South  Mountain, 
the  Union  army  came  up  with  that  of  the  Rebels 
on  the  12th,  and  found  it  securely  posted  on  the 
heights  of  Marsh  Run.  The  position  was  recon- 
noitred, and  preparations  made  for  an  attack  on  the 
13th.  The  depth  of  the  river,  swrollen  by  the  recent 
rains,  authorized  the  expectation  that  the  enemy 
would  be  brought  to  a  general  engagement  the  fol- 
lowing day.  An  advance  was  accordingly  made  by 
General  Meade  on  the  morning  of  the  14th;  but  it 
was  soon  found  that  the  Rebels  had  escaped  in  the 
5* 


58  ADDRESS. 

night,  with  such  haste  that  EwelPs  corps  forded 
the  river  where  the  water  was  breast-high.  The 
cavalry,  which  had  rendered  the  most  important  ser- 
vices during  the  three  days,  and  in  harassing  the 
enemy's  retreat,  was  now  sent  in  pursuit,  and  cap- 
tured two  guns  and  a  large  number  of  prisoners. 
In  an  action  which  took  place  at  Falling  Waters, 
General  Pettigrew  was  mortally  wounded.  General 
Meade,  in  further  pursuit  of  the  Rebels,  crossed  the 
Potomac  at  Berlin.  Thus  again  covering  the  ap- 
proaches to  Washington,  he  compelled  the  enemy  to 
pass  the  Blue  Ridge  at  one  of  the  upper  gaps ;  and 
in  about  six  weeks  from  the  commencement  of  the 
campaign,  General  Lee  found  himself  again  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  with  the  probable 
loss  of  about  a  third  part  of  his  army. 

Such,  most  inadequately  recounted,  is  the  history 
of  the  ever  -  memorable  three  days,  and  of  the 
events  immediately  preceding  and  following.  It  has 
been  pretended,  in  order  to  diminish  the  magnitude 
of  this  disaster  to  the  Rebel  cause,  that  it  was 
merely  the  repulse  of  an  attack  on  a  strongly  de- 
fended position.  The  tremendous  losses  on  both 
sides  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  misrepresen- 
tation, and  attest  the  courage  and  obstinacy  with 
which  the  three  days'  battle  was  waged.  Few  of 
the  great  conflicts  of  modern  times  have  cost  vic- 
tors and  vanquished  so  great  a  sacrifice.  On  the 
Union  side,  there  fell,  in  the  whole  campaign,  of  gen- 
erals killed,  Reynolds,  Weed,  and  Zook,  and  wound- 
ed, Barlow,  Barnes,  Buttcrfield,  Doubleday,  Gibbon, 


ADDRESS.  59 

Graham,  Hancock,  Sickles,  and  Warren ;  while  of 
officers  below  the  rank  of  general,  and  men,  there 
were  2834  killed,  13,709  wounded,  and  6643  miss- 
ing. On  the  Confederate  side,  there  were  killed  on 
the  field  or  mortally  wounded,  Generals  Armistead, 
Barksdale,  Garnett,  Fender,  Pettigrew,  and  Semmes, 
and  wounded,  Heth,  Hood,  Johnson,  Kemper,  Kim- 
ball,  and  Trimble.  Of  officers  below  the  rank  of 
general,  and  men,  there  were  taken  prisoners,  in- 
cluding the  \vounded,  13,621,  an  amount  ascertained 
officially.  Of  the  wounded  in  a  condition  to  be  re- 
moved, of  the.  killed,  and  the  missing,  the  enemy 
has  made  no  return.  They  are  estimated,  from  the 
best  data  which  the  nature  of  the  case  admits,  at 
23,000.  General  Meade  also  captured  3  cannon, 
[Jfl^CPQ-  -smntl  oiimfl, " ft ' ut  41  standards  ;  and  24,978 
small  arms  were  collected  on  the  battle-field. 

I  must  leave  to  others,  who  can  do  it  from  per- 
sonal observation,  to  describe  the  mournful  spectacle 
presented  by  these  hill-sides  and  plains  at  the  close 
of  the  terrible  conflict.  It  was  a  saying  of  the 
Duke  of  "Wellington,  that  next  to  a  defeat,  the  sad- 
dest thing  is  a  victory.  The  horrors  of  the  battle- 
field, after  the  contest  is  over,  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  woe,  —  let  me  throw  a  pall  over  the 
scene,  which  no  words  can  adequately  depict  to 
those  who  have  not  witnessed  it,  on  which  no  one 
who  has  witnessed  it,  and  who  has  a  heart  in  his 
bosom,  can  bear  to  dwell.  One  drop  of  balm  alone, 
one  drop  of  heavenly,  life-giving  balm,  mingles  in 
this  bitter  cup  of  misery.  Scarcely  has  the  cannon 


60  ADDRESS. 

ceased  to  roar,  when  the  brethren  and  sisters  of 
Christian  benevolence,  ministers  of  compassion,  an- 
gels of  pity,  hasten  to  the  field  and  the  hospital, 
to  moisten  the  parched  tongue,  to  bind  the  ghastly 
wounds,  to  soothe  the  parting  agonies  alike  of  friend 
and  foe,  and  to  catch  the  last  whispered  messages 
of  love  from  dying  lips.  "  Carry  this  miniature  back 
to  my  dear  wife,  but  do  not  take  it  from  my  bosom 
till  I  am  gone."  "  Tell  my  little  sister  not  to  grieve 
for  me ;  I  am  willing  to  die  for  my  country."  u  Oh, 
that  my  mother  were  here ! "  When  since  Aaron 
stood  between  the  living  and  the  dead  was  there 
ever  so  gracious  a  ministry  as  this  ?  It  has  been 
said  that  -it  is  characteristic  of  Americans  to  treat 
women  with  a  deference  not  paid  to  them  in  any 
other  country.  I  will  not  undertake  to  say  whether 
this  is  so;  but  I  will  say,  that,  since  this  terrible 
war  has  been  waged,  the  women  of  the  loyal  States, 
if  never  before,  have  entitled  themselves  to  our 
highest  admiration  and  gratitude, — alike  those  who 
at  home,  often  with  fingers  unused  to  the  toil,  often 
bowed  beneath  their  own  domestic  cares,  have  per- 
formed an  amount  of  daily  labor  not  exceeded  by 
those  who  work  for  their  daily  bread,  and  those  who, 
in  the  hospital  and  the  tents  of  the  Sanitary  and 
Christian  Commissions,  have  rendered  services  which 
millions  could  not  buy.  Happily,  the  labor  and  the 
service  are  their  own  reward.  Thousands  of  matrons 
and  thousands  of  maidens  have  experienced  a  delight 
in  these  homely  toils  and  services,  compared  with 
which  the  pleasures  of  the  ball-room  and  the  opera- 


ADDRESS.  61 

house  are  tame  and  unsatisfactory.  This  on  earth 
is  reward  enough,  but  a  richer  is  in  store  for  them. 
Yes,  brothers,  sisters  of  charity,  while  you  bind  up 
the  wounds  of  the  poor  sufferers,  —  the  humblest, 
perhaps,  that  have  shed  their  blood  for  the  coun- 
try,—  forget  not  WHO  it  is  that  will  hereafter  say 
to  you,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  my  BRETHREN,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  me." 

And  now,  friends,  fellow-citizens,  as  we  stand 
among  these  honored  graves,  the  momentous  ques- 
tion presents  itself,  Which  of  the  two  parties  to  the 
war  is  responsible  for  all  this  suffering,  for  this 
dreadful  sacrifice  of  life,  the  lawful  and  constitu- 
tional government  of  the  United  States,  or  the  am- 
bitious men  who  have  rebelled  against  it  ?  I  say 
"rebelled"  against  it,  although  Earl  Russell,  the 
British  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  in  his 
recent  temperate  and  conciliatory  speech  in  Scot- 
land, seems  to  intimate  that  no  prejudice  ought  to 
attach  to  that  word,  inasmuch  as  our  English  fore- 
fathers rebelled  against  Charles  I.  and  James  II., 
and  our  American  fathers  rebelled  against  George 
III.  These  certainly  are  venerable  precedents,  but 
they  prove  only  that  it  is  just  and  proper  to  rebel 
against  oppressive  governments.  They  do  not  prove 
that  it  was  just  and  proper  for  the  son  of  James  II. 
to  rebel  against  George  I.,  or  his  grandson  Charles 
Edward  to  rebel  against  George  II. ;  nor,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  ought  these  dynastic  struggles,  little  better 
than  family  quarrels,  to  be  compared  with  this 


62  ADDRESS. 

monstrous  conspiracy  against  the  American  Union. 
These  precedents  do  not  prove  that  it  was  just  and 
proper  for  the  "  disappointed  great  men "  of  the 
cotton-growing  States  to  rebel  against  "  the  most 
beneficent  government  of  which  history  gives  us 
any  account,"  as  the  Vice-President  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, in  November,  1860,  charged  them  with  doing. 
They  do  not  create  a  presumption  even  in  favor 
of  the  disloyal  slaveholders  of  the  South,  who,  liv- 
ing under  a  government  of  which  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis,  in  the  session  of  1860-61,  said  that  it  was 
"  the  best  government  ever  instituted  by  man,  un- 
exceptionably  administered,  and  under  which  the 
people  have  been  prosperous  beyond  comparison 
with  any  other  people  whose  career  has  been  re- 
corded in  history,"  rebelled  against  it  because  their 
aspiring  politicians,  himself  among  the  rest,  were  in 
danger  of  losing  their  monopoly  of  its  offices.  What 
would  have  been  thought  by  an  impartial  posterity 
of  the  American  rebellion  against  George  III.,  if 
the  colonists  had  at  all  times  been  more  than 
equally  represented  in  parliament,  and  James  Otis 
and  Patrick  Henry  and  Washington  and  Franklin 
and  the  Adamses  and  Hancock  and  Jefferson,  and 
men  of  their  stamp,  had  for  two  generations  en- 
joyed the  confidence  of  the  sovereign  and  adminis- 
tered the  government  of  the  empire  ?  What  would 
have  been  thought  of  the  rebellion  against  Charles 
I.,  if  Cromwell  and  the  men  of  his  school  had  been 
the  responsible  advisers  of  that  prince  from  his  ac- 
cession to  the  throne,  and  then,  on  account  of  a 


ADDRESS.  63 

partial  change  in  the  ministry,  had  brought  his  head 
to  the  block,  and  involved  the  country  in  a  desolating 
war,  for  the  sake  of  dismembering  it  and  establish- 
ing a  new  government  south  of  the  Trent  ?  What 
would  have  been  thought  of  the  Whigs  of  1688,  if 
they  had  themselves  composed  the  cabinet  of  James 
II.,  and  been  the  advisers  of  the  measures  and  the 
promoters  of  the  policy  which  drove  him  into  exile  ? 
The  Puritans  of  1640  and  the  Whigs  of  1688  rebelled 
against  arbitrary  power  in  order  to  establish  consti- 
tutional liberty.  If  they  had  risen  against  Charles 
and  James  because  those  monarchs  favored  equal 
rio-hts,  and  in  order  themselves  "for  the  first  time 

o        " 

in  the  history  of  the  world"  to  establish  an  oligar- 
chy "founded  on  the  corner-stone  of  slavery,"  they 
would  truly  have  furnished  a  precedent  for  the  Reb- 
els of  the  South,  but  their  cause  would  not  have 
been  sustained  by  the  eloquence  of  Pym  or  of 
Somers,  nor  sealed  with  the  blood  of  Hampden  or 
Russell. 

I  call  the  war  which  the  Confederates  are  waging 
against  the  Union  a  "rebellion,"  because  it  is  one, 
and  in  grave  matters  it  is  best  to  call  things  by  their 
right  names.  I  speak  of  it  as  a  crime,  because  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  so  regards  it,  and 
puts  "  rebellion "  on  a  par  with  "  invasion."  The 
Constitution  and  law  not  only  of  England,  but  of 
every  civilized  country,  regard  them  in  the  same 
light ;  or  rather  they  consider  the  rebel  in  arms  as 
far  worse  than  the  alien  enemy.  To  levy  war 
against  the  United  States  is  the  constitutional  defi- 


64  ADDKESS. 

nition  of  treason,  and  that  crime  is  by  every  civ- 
ilized government  regarded  as  the  highest  which 
citizen  or  subject  can  commit.  Not  content  with 
the  sanctions  of  human  justice,  of  all  the  crimes 
against  the  law  of  the  land  it  is  singled  out  for  the 
denunciations  of  religion.  The  litanies  of  every 
church  in  Christendom  whose  ritual  embraces  that 
office,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  from  the  metropol- 
itan cathedrals  of  Europe  to  the  humblest  mission- 
ary chapel  in  the  islands  of  the  sea,  concur  with 
the  Church  of  England  in  imploring  the  Sovereign 
of  the  universe,  by  the  most  awful  adjurations 
which  the  heart  of  man  can  conceive  or  his  tongue 
utter,  to  deliver  us  from  "  sedition,  privy  conspir- 
acy, and  rebellion."  And  reason  good ;  for  while 
a  rebellion  against  tyranny,  —  a  rebellion  designed,- 
after  prostrating  arbitrary  power,  to  establish  free 
government  on  the  basis  of  justice  and  truth, — 
is  an  enterprise  on  which  good  men  and  angels 
may  look  with  complacency,  an  unprovoked  rebel- 
lion of  .ambitious  men  against  a  beneficent  gov- 
ernment, for  the  purpose  —  the  avowed  purpose  — 
of .  establishing,  extending,  and  perpetuating  any 
form  of  injustice  and  wrong,  is  an  imitation  on 
earth  of  that  first  foul  revolt  of  "the  Infernal  Ser- 
pent," against  which  the  Supreme  Majesty  of  heav- 
en sent  forth  the  armed  myriads  of  his  angels,  and 
clothed  the  right  arm  of  his  Son  with  the  three- 
bolted  thunders  of  omnipotence. 

Lord  Bacon,  in  "the  true  marshalling  of  the  sov- 
ereign degrees  of  honor,"  assigns  the  first  place   to 


ADDRESS.  65 

"  the   Conditores  Imperiorum,   founders    of    States   and 
Commonwealths ; "   and,  truly,  to  build  up  from  the 
discordant  elements  of  our  nature,  the  passions,  the 
interests,    and   the  opinions  of  the    individual   man, 
the    rivalries   of    family,   clan,   and    tribe,   the    influ- 
ences of  climate   and  geographical  position,  the   ac- 
cidents of  peace   and  war  accumulated  for  ages,  — 
to  build  up  from,  these  oftentimes  warring  elements 
u  well-compacted,  prosperous,  and  powerful  State,  if 
it  were  to  be  accomplished  by  one  effort  or  in  one 
generation,  would  require  a  more  than  mortal  skill. 
To  contribute  in  some  notable  degree   to   this,  the 
greatest  work  of  man,  by  wise  and  patriotic  counsel 
in  peace   and  loyal  heroism   in  war,  is   as   high  as 
human   merit   can  well   rise,  and  far   more  than  to 
any  of  those    to  whom   Bacon  assigns  this   highest 
place  of  honor,  whose  names  can  hardly  be  repeated 
without   a  wondering  smile,  —  Romulus,  Cyrus,  Cae- 
sar, Ottoman,  Ismael,  —  is  it  due  to  our  Washington 
as  the   founder  of  the  American  Union.     But  if  to 
achieve    or   help    to    achieve    this   greatest  work  of 
man's    wisdom    and    virtue    gives    title    to    a    place 
among   the   chief  benefactors,  rightful   heirs  of   the 
benedictions,  of  mankind,  by  equal  reason  shall  the 
bold,  bad  men  who  seek  to   undo   the  noble  work, 
Everswes  Imperiorum,   destroyers    of  States,  who    for 
base  and  selfish  ends  rebel  against  beneficent   gov- 
ernments, seek  to  overturn  wise  constitutions,  to  lay 
powerful    republican  Unions   at  the   foot  of  foreign 
thrones,  to  bring  on  civil  and  foreign  war,  anarchy 
at    home,    dictation    abroad,   desolation,    ruin,  —  by 
6 


66  ADDRESS. 

equal   reason,    I   say,    yes,   a    thousandfold    stronger, 
shall  they  inherit  the  execrations  of  the  ages. 

But  to  hide  the  deformity  of  the  crime  under  the 
cloak  of  that  sophistry  which  strives  to  make  the 
worse  appear  the  better  reason,  we  are  told  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Rebellion  that  in  our  complex  system 
of  government  the  separate  States  are  "sovereigns," 
and  that  the  central  power  is  only  an  "  agency " 
established  by  these  sovereigns  to  manage  certain 
little  affairs,  —  such,  forsooth,  as  Peace,  War,  Army, 
Navy,  Finance,  Territory,  and  Relations  with  the 
native  tribes,  —  which  they  could  not  so  conven- 
iently administer  themselves.  It  happens,  unfortu- 
nately for  this  theory,  that  the  Federal  Constitution 
(which  has  been  adopted  by  the  people  of  every 
State  of  the  Union  as  much  as  their  own  State  con- 
stitutions have  been  adopted,  and  is  declared  to  be 
paramount  to  them)  nowhere  recognizes  the  States 
as  "sovereigns,"  —  in  fact,  that,  by  their  names,  it 
does  not  recognize  them  at  all;  while  the  authority 
established  by  that  instrument  is  recognized,  in  its 
text,  not  as  an  "  agency,"  but  as  "  the  Government 
of  the  United  States."  By  that  Constitution,  more- 
over, which  purports  in  its  preamble  to  be  ordained 
and  established  by  "  the  People  of  the  United  States," 
it  is  expressly  provided,  that  "the  members  of  the 
State  legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial  offi- 
cers, shall  be  bound  by  oath  or  affirmation  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution."  Now  it  is  a  common  thing, 
under  all  governments,  for  an  agent  to  be  bound 
by  oath  to  be  faithful  to  his  sovereign ;  but  I  never 


ADDRESS.  67 

heard  before  of  sovereigns  being  bound  by  oath  to 
be  faithful  to  their  agency. 

Certainly  I  d.o  not  deny  that  the  separate  States 
are  clothed  with  sovereign  powers  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  local  affairs.  It  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful features  of  our  mixed  system  of  government; 
but  it  is  equally  true,  that,  in  adopting  the  Federal 
Constitution,  the  States  abdicated,  by  express  renun- 
ciation, all  the  most  important  functions  of  national 
sovereignty,  and,  by  one  comprehensive,  self-denying 
clause,  gave  up  all  right  to  contravene  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States.  Specifically,  and  by 
enumeration,  they  renounced  all  the  most  important 
prerogatives  of  independent  States  for  peace  and 
for  war,  —  the  right  to  keep  troops  or  ships  of  war 
in  time  of  peace,  or  to  engage  in  war  unless  actu- 
ally invaded ;  to  enter  into  compact  with  another 
State  or  a  foreign  power  j  to  lay  any  duty  on  ton- 
nage, or  any  impost  on  exports  or  imports,  with- 
out the  consent  of  Congress  ;  to  enter  into  any 
treaty,  alliance,  or  confederation ;  to  grant  letters 
of  marque  and  reprisal,  and  to  emit  bills  of  credit, 
—  while  all  these  powers  and  many  others  are  ex- 
pressly vested  in  the  General  Government.  To  as- 
cribe to  political  communities,  thus  limited  in  their 
jurisdiction,  —  who  cannot  even  establish  a  post- 
office  on  their  own  soil,  —  the  character  of  inde- 
pendent sovereignty,  and  to  reduce  a  national  or- 
ganization, clothed  with  all  the  transcendent  powers 
of  government,  to  the  name  and  condition  of  an 
"  agency "  of  the  States,  proves  nothing  but  that 


68  ADDRESS. 

the  logic  of  secession  is  on  a  par  with  its  loyalty 
and  patriotism. 

Oh,  but  "the  reserved  rights!"  And  what  of  the 
reserved  rights  ?  The  tenth  amendment  of  the  Con- 
stitution, supposed  to  provide  for  "reserved  rights," 
is  constantly  misquoted.  By  that  amendment,  "  the 
2mvers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the 
Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are 
reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  People." 
The  "  powers "  reserved  must  of  course  be  such  as 
could  have  been,  but  were  not  delegated  to  the 
United  States,  —  could  have  been,  but  .were  not 
prohibited  to  the  States;  but  to  speak  of  the  right 
of  an  individual  State  to  secede,  as  a  power  that 
could  have  been,  though  it  was  not  delegated  to 
the  United  States,  is  simple  nonsense. 

But  waiving  this  obvious  absurdity,  can  it  need 
a  serious  argument  to  prove  that  there  can  be  no 
State  right  to  enter  into  a  new  confederation  re- 
served under  a  constitution  which  expressly  prohib- 
its a  State  to  "enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or 
confederation,"  or  any  "agreement  or  compact  with 
another  State  or  a  foreign  power?"  To  say  that  the 
State  may,  by  enacting  the  preliminary  farce  of  se- 
cession, acquire  the  right  to  do  the  prohibited  things, 
—  to  say,  for  instance,  that  though  the  States,  in  form- 
ing the  Constitution,  delegated  to  the  United  States 
arid  prohibited  to  themselves  the  power  of  declaring 
war,  there  was  by  implication  reserved  to  each  State 
the  right  of  seceding  and  then  declaring  war;  that, 
though  they  expressly  prohibited  to  the  States  and 


ADDRESS.  69 

delegated,  to  the  United  States  the  entire  treaty- 
making  power,  they  reserved  by  implication  (for  an 
express  reservation  is  not  pretended)  to  the  indi- 
vidual States,  to  Florida,  for  instance,  the  right  to 
secede,  and  then  to  make  a  treaty  with  Spain  retro- 
ceding  that  Spanish  colony,  and  thus  surrendering 
to  a  foreign  power  the  key  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
—  to  maintain  propositions  like  these,  with  whatever 
affected  seriousness  it  is  done,  appears  to  me  egre- 
gious trifling. 

Pardon  me,  my  friends,  for  dwelling  on  these 
wretched  sophistries.  But  it  is  these  which  con- 
ducted the  armed  hosts  of  rebellion  to  your  doors 
on  the  terrible  and  glorious  days  of  July,  and  which 
have  brought  upon  the  whole  land  the  scourge  of 
an  aggressive  and  wicked  war,  —  a  war  which  can 
have  no  other  termination  compatible  with  the  per- 
manent safety  and  welfare  of  the  country  but  the 
complete  destruction  of  the  military  power  of  the 
enemy.  I  have,  on  other  occasions,  attempted  to 
show  that  to  yield  to  his  demands  and  acknowledge 
his  independence,  thus  resolving  the  Union  at  once 
into  two  hostile  governments,  with  a  certainty  of 
further  disintegration,  would  annihilate  the  strength 
and  the  influence  of  the  country  as  a  member  of 
the  family  of  nations ;  afford  to  foreign  powers  the 
opportunity  and  the  temptation  for  humiliating  and 
disastrous  interference  in  our  affairs ;  wrest  from 
the  Middle  and  Western  States  some  of  their  great 
natural  outlets  to  the  sea  and  of  their  most  impor- 
tant lines  of  internal  communication ;  deprive  the 


70  ADDRESS. 

commerce  and  navigation  of  the  country  of  two 
thirds  of  our  sea-coast  and  of  the  fortresses  which 
protect  it:  not  only  so,  but  would  enable  each  indi- 
vidual State,  —  some  of  them  with  a  white  popula- 
tion equal  to  a  good-sized  Northern  county,  —  or 
rather  the  dominant  party  in  each  State,  to  cede 
its  territory,  its  harbors,  its  fortresses,  the  mouths 
of  its  rivers,  to  any  foreign  power.  It  cannot  be 
that  the  people  of  the  loyal  States,  —  that  twenty- 
two  millions  of  brave  and  prosperous  freemen,  — 
will,  for  the  temptation  of  a  brief  truce  in  an  eter- 
nal border-war,  consent  to  this  hideous  national  sui- 
cide. 

Do  not  think  that  I  exaggerate  the  consequences 
of  yielding  to  the  demands  of  the  leaders  of  the  Re- 
bellion. I  understate  them.  They  require  of  us 
not  only  all  the  sacrifices  I  have  named,  not  only 
the  cession  to  them,  a  foreign  and  hostile  power,  of 
all  the  territory  of  the  United  States  at  present 
occupied  by  the  Rebel  forces,  but  the  abandonment 
to  them  of  the  vast  regions  we  have  rescued  from 
their  grasp, —  of  Maryland,  of  a  part  of  Eastern  Vir- 
ginia and  the  whole  of  Western  Virginia ;  the  sea- 
coast  of  North  and  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Florida;  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri;  Arkan- 
sas, and  the  larger  portion  of  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 
and  Texas,  —  in  most  of  Avhich,  with  the  exception 
of  lawless  guerillas,  there  is  not  a  rebel  in  arms,  in 
all  of  which  the  great  majority  of  the  people  are 
loyal  to  the  Union.  We  must  give  back,  too,  the 
helpless  colored  population,  thousands  of  whom  are 


ADDRESS.  71 

perilling  their  lives  in  the  ranks  of  our  armies,  to  a 
bondage  rendered  tenfold  more  bitter  by  the  mo- 
mentary enjoyment  of  freedom.  Finally,  we  must 
surrender  every  man  in  the  Southern  country,  white 
or  black,  who  has  moved  a  finger  or  spoken  a  word 
for  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  to  a  reign  of  ter- 
ror as  remorseless  as  that  of  Robespierre,  which  has 
been  the  chief  instrument  by  which'  the  Rebellion 
has  been  organized  and  sustained,  and  which  has  al- 
ready filled  the  prisons  of  the  South  with  noble  men, 
whose  only  crime  is  that  they  are  not  the  worst  of 
criminals.  The  South  is  full  of  such  men.  I  do  not 
believe  there  has  been  a  day  since  the  election  of 
President  Lincoln,  when,  if  an  ordinance  of  secession 
could  have  been  fairly  submitted,  after. a  free  discus- 
sion, to  the  mass  of  the  people  in  any  single  South- 
ern State,  a  majority  of  ballots  would  have  been 
given  in  its  favor.  No,  not  in  South  Carolina.  It 
is  not  possible  that  the  majority  of  the  people,  even 
of  that  State,  if  permitted,  without  fear  or 'favor,  to 
give  a  ballot  on  the  question,  would  have  aban- 
doned a  leader  like  Petigru,  and  all  the  memories 
of  the  Gadsdens,  the  Rutledges,  and  the  Cotesworth 
Pinckneys  of  the  revolutionary  and  constitutional 
age,  to  follow  the  agitators  of  the  present  day. 

Nor  must  we  be  deterred  from  the  vigorous  pros- 
ecution of  the  war  by  the  suggestion,  continually 
thrown  out  by  the  Rebels  and  those  who  sympathize 
with  them,  that,  however  it  might  have  been  at  an 
earlier  stage,  there  has  been  engendered  by  the 
operations  of  the  war  a  state  of  exasperation  and 


72  ADDRESS. 

bitterness,  which,  independent  of  all  reference  to 
the  original  nature  of  the  matters  in  controversy, 
will  forever  prevent  the  restoration  of  the  Union, 
and  the  return  of  harmony  between  the  two  great 
sections  of  the  country.  This  opinion  I  take  to  be 
entirely  without  foundation. 

No  man  can  deplore  more  than  I  do  the  mis- 
eries of  every  kind  unavoidably  incident  to  war. 
Who  could  stand  on  this  spot  and  call  to  mind  the 
scenes  of  the  first  days  of  July  with  any  other  feel- 
ing ?  A  sad  foreboding  of  what  would  ensue,  if  war 
should  break  out  between  North  and  South,  has 
haunted  me  through  life,  and  led  me,  perhaps  too 
long,  to  tread  in  the  path  of  hopeless  compromise, 
in  the  fond  endeavor  to  conciliate  those  who  were 
predetermined  not  to  be  conciliated.  But  it  is  not 
true,  as  is  pretended  by  the  Rebels  and  their  sym- 
pathizers, that  the  war  has  been  carried  on  by  the 
United  States  without  entire  regard  to  those  tem- 
peraments which  are  enjoined  by  the  law  of  nations, 
by  our  modern  civilization,  and  by  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  It  would  be  quite  easy  to  point  out, 
in  the  recent  military  history  of  the  leading  Euro- 
pean powers,  acts  of  violence  and  cruelty,  in  the 
prosecution  of  their  wars,  to  which  no  parallel  can 
be  found  among  us.  In  fact,  when  we  consider  the 
peculiar  bitterness  with  which  civil  wars  are  almost 
invariably  waged,  we  may  justly  boast  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  United  States  have  carried  on  the 
contest.  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  prevent  the 
lawless  acts  of  stragglers  and  deserters,  or  the  occa- 


ADDRESS.  73 

sional  unwarrantable  proceedings  of  subordinates  on 
distant  stations ;  but  I  do  not  believe  there  is,  in 
all  history,  the ,  record  of  a  civil  war  of  such  gigan- 
tic dimensions  where  so  little  has  been  done  in  the 
spirit  of  vindictiveness  as  in  this  war,  by  the  Gov- 
ernment and  commanders  of  the  United  States;  and 
this  notwithstanding  the  provocation  given  by  the 
Kebel  Government  by  assuming  the  responsibility  of 
wretches  like  Quantrell,  refusing  quarter  to  colored 
troops  and  scourging  and  selling  into  slavery  free 
colored  men  from  the  North  who  fall  into  their 
hands,  by  covering  the  sea  with  pirates,  refusing  a 
just  exchange  of  prisoners,  while  they  crowd  their 
armies  with  paroled  prisoners  not  exchanged,  and 
starving  prisoners  of  war  to  death. 

In  the  next  place,  if  there  are  any  present  who 
believe,  that,  in  addition  to  the  effect  of  the  mili- 
tary operations  of  the  war,  the  confiscation  acts  and 
emancipation  proclamations  have  embittered  the  Reb- 
els beyond  the  possibility  of  reconciliation,  I  would 
request  them  to  reflect  that  the  tone  of  the  Rebel 
leaders  and  Rebel  press  was  just  as  bitter  in  the 
first  months  of  the  war,  nay,  before  a  gun  was  fired, 
as  it  is  now.  There  were  speeches  made  in  Con- 
gress in  the  very  last  session  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Rebellion,  so  ferocious  as  to  show  that  their 
authors  were  under  the  influence  of  a  real  frenzy. 
At  the  present  day,  if  there  is  any  discrimination 
made  by  the  Confederate  press  in  the  affected  scorn, 
hatred,  and  contumely  with  which  every  shade  of 
opinion  and  sentiment  in  the  loyal  States  is  treated, 


74  ADDRESS. 

the  bitterest  contempt  is  bestowed  upon  those  at  the 
North  who  still  speak  the  language  of  compromise, 
and  who  condemn  those  measures  of  the  administra- 
tion which  are  alleged  to  have  rendered  the  return  of 
peace  hopeless. 

No,  my  friends,  that  gracious  Providence  which 
overrules  all  things  for  the  best,  "from  seeming  evil 
still  educing  good,"  has  so  constituted  our  natures, 
that  the  violent  excitement  of  the  passions  in  one  di- 
rection is  generally  followed  by  a  reaction  in  an  oppo- 
site direction,  and  the  sooner  for  the  violence.  If  it 
were  not  so,  —  if  injuries  inflicted  and  retaliated  of 
necessity  led  to  new  retaliations,  with  forever  accumu- 
lating compound  interest  of  revenge,  then  the  world, 
thousands  of  years  ago,  would  have  been^turned  into 
an  earthly  hell,  and  the  nations  of  the  earth  would 
have  been  resolved  into  clans  of  furies  and  demons, 
each  forever  warring  with  his  neighbor.  But  it  is  not 
so ;  all  history  teaches  a  different  lesson.  The  Wars 
of  the  Roses  in  England  lasted  an  entire  generation, 
from  the  Battle  of  St.  Albans  in  1455  to  that  of  Bos- 
worth  Field  in  1485.  Speaking  of  the  former,  Hume 
says :  "  This  was  the  first  blood  spilt  in  that  fatal 
quarrel,  which  was  not  finished  in  less  than  a  course 
of  thirty  years  ;  which  was  signalized  by  twelve 
pitched  battles ;  which  opened  a  scene  of  extraordi- 
nary fierceness  and  cruelty ;  is  computed  to  have  cost 
the  lives  of  eighty  princes  of  the  blood ;  and  almost 
entirely  annihilated  the  ancient  nobility  of  England 
The  strong  attachments  which,  at  that  time,  men  of 
the  same  kindred  bore  to  each  other,  and  the  vindic- 


ADDRESS.  75 

tive  spirit  which  was  considered  a  point  of  honor, 
rendered  the  great  families  implacable  in  their  resent- 
ments, and  widened  every  moment  the  breach  between 
the  parties."  Such  was  the  state  of  things  in  England 
under  which  an  entire  generation  grew  up ;  but  when 
Henry  VII.,  in  whom  the  titles  of  the  two  Houses  were 
united,  went  up  to  London  after  the  Battle  of  Bos- 
worth  Field,  to  mount  the  throne,  he  was  everywhere 
received  with  joyous  acclamations,  "as  one  ordained 
and  sent  from  heaven  to  put  an  end  to  the  dissen- 
sions" which  had  so  long  afflicted  the  country. 

The  great  Rebellion  in  England  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  after  long  and  angry  premonitions,  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  calling  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment in  1640,  and  to  have  ended  with  the  return  of 
Charles  II.  in  1660,  —  twenty  years  of  discord,  con- 
flict, and  civil  war ;  of  confiscation,  plunder,  havoc  ;  a 
proud  hereditary  peerage  trampled  in  the  dust ;  a 
national  church  overturned,  its  clergy  beggared,  its 
most  eminent  prelate  put  to  death ;  a  military  despot- 
ism established  on  the  ruins  of  a  monarchy  which  had 
subsisted  seven  hundred  years,  and  the  legitimate  sov- 
ereign brought  to  the  block ;  the  great  families  which 
adhered  to  the  king  proscribed,  impoverished,  ruined ; 
prisoners  of  war  —  a  fate  worse  than  starvation  in 
Libby  —  sold  to  slavery  in  the  West  Indies;  in  a 
word,  everything  that  can  embitter  and  madden  con- 
tending factions.  Such  was  the  state  of  things  for 
twenty  years;  and  yet,  by  no  gentle  transition,  but 
suddenly,  and  "when  the  restoration  of  affairs  appeared 
most  hopeless,"  the  son  of  the  beheaded  sovereign  was 


76  ADDRESS. 

brought  back  to  his  father's  blood-stained  throne,  with 
such  "  unexpressible  and  universal  joy "  as  led  the 
merry  monarch  to  exclaim  "  he  doubted  it  had  been 
his  own  fault  he  had  been  absent  so  long,  for  he  saw 
nobody  who  did  not  protest  he  had  ever  wished  for 
his  return."  "  In  this  wonderful  manner,"  says  Claren- 
don, "  and  with  this  incredible  expedition,  did  God  put 
an  end  to  a  rebellion  that  had  raged  near  twenty 
years,  and  had  been  carried  on  with  all  the  horrid  cir- 
cumstances of  murder,  devastation,  and  parricide,  that 
fire  and  sword,  in  the  hands  of  the  most  wicked  men 
in  the  world,"  (it  is  a  royalist  that  is  speaking,)  "  could 
be  instruments  of,  almost  to  the  desolation  of  two 
kingdoms,  and  the  exceeding  defacing  and  deforming 

of  the  third By  these  remarkable  steps  did  the 

merciful  hand  of  God,  in  this  short  space  of  time,  not 
only  bind  up  and  heal  all  those  wounds,  but  even 
made  the  scar  as  undiscernible  as,  in  respect  of  the 
deepness,  was  possible,  which  was  a  glorious  addition 
to  the  deliverance." 

In  Germany,  the  wars  of  the  Eeformation  and  of 
Charles  V.  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  Seven  Years'  War 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  not  to  speak  of  other  less 
celebrated  contests,  entailed  upon  that  country  all  the 
miseries  of  intestine  strife  for  more  than  three  centu- 
ries. At  the  close  of  the  last-named  war,  —  which  was 
the  shortest  of  all  and  waged  in  the  most  civilized  age, 
—  "an  officer,"  says  Archenholz,  "rode  through  seven 
villages  in  Hesse,  and  found  in  them  but  one  human 
being."  More  than  three  hundred  principalities,  com- 


ADDRESS.  77 

prehended  in  the  Empire,  fermented  with  the  fierce 
passions  of  proud  and  petty  States ;  at  the  commence- 
ment of  this  period  the  castles  of  robber  counts  frowned 
upon  every  hill-top ;  a  dreadful  secret  tribunal,  whose 
seat  no  one  knew,  whose  power  none  could  escape, 
froze  the  hearts  of  men  with  terror  throughout  the 
land ;  religious  hatred  mingled  its  bitter  poison  in  the 
seething  caldron  of  provincial  animosity  :  but  of  all 
these  deadly  enmities  between  the  States  of  Germany 
scarcely  the  memory  remains.  There  are  controver- 
sies in  that  country,  at  the  present  day,  but  they 
grow  mainly  out  of  the  rivalry  of  the  two  leading 
powers.  There  is  no  country  in  the  world  in  which 
the  sentiment  of  national  brotherhood  is  stronger. 

In  Italy,  on  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, society  might  be  said  to  be  resolved  into  its 
original  elements,  —  into  hostile  atoms,  whose  only 
movement  was  that  of  mutual  repulsion.  Ruthless 
barbarians  had  destroyed  the  old  organizations,  and 
covered  the  land  with  a  merciless  feudalism.  As 
the  new  civilization  grew  up,  under  the  wing  of  the 
Church,  the  noble  families  and  the  walled  towns 
fell  madly  into  conflict  with  each  other;  the  secu- 
lar feud  of  Pope  and  Emperor  scourged  the  land; 
province  against  province,  city  against  city,  street 
against  street,  waged  remorseless  war  with  each 
other  from  father  to  son,  till  Dante  was  able  to  fill 
his  imaginary  hell  with  the  real  demons  of  Italian 
history.  So  ferocious  had  the  factions  become,  that 
the  great  poet-exile  himself,  the  glory  of  his  native 
city  and  of  his  native  language,  was,  by  a  decree 


78  ADDRESS. 

of  the  municipality,  condemned  to  be  burned  alive 
if  found  in  the  city  of  Florence.  But  these  deadly 
feuds  and  hatreds  yielded  to  political  influences,  as 
the  hostile  cities  were  grouped  into  States  under 
stable  governments ;  the  lingering  traditions  of  the 
ancient  animosities  gradually  died  away,  and  now 
Tuscan  and  Lombard,  Sardinian  and  Neapolitan,  as 
if  to  shame  the  degenerate  sons  of  America,  are 
joining  in  one  cry  for  a  united  Italy. 

In  France,  not  to  go  back  to  the  civil  wars  of  the 
League  in  the  sixteenth  century  and  of  the  Fronde 
in  the  seventeenth ;  not  to  speak  of  the  dreadful 
scenes  throughout  the  kingdom,  which  followed  the 
revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes;  we  have,  in  the 
great  revolution  which  commenced  at  the  close  of 
the  last  century,  seen  the  blood-hounds  of  civil  strife 
let  loose  as  rarely  before  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
The  reign  of  terror  established  at  Paris  stretched 
its  bloody  Briarean  arms  to  every  city  and  village 
in  the  land,  and  if  the  most  deadly  feuds  which 
ever  divided  a  people  had  the  power  to  cause  per- 
manent alienation  and  hatred,  this  surely  was  the 
occasion.  But  far  otherwise  the  fact.  In  seven 
years  from  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  the  strong  arm 
of  the  youthful  conqueror  brought  order  out  of  this 
chaos  of  crime  and  woe ;  Jacobins  whose  hands  were 
scarcely  cleansed  from  the  best  blood  of  France  met 
the  returning  emigrants,  whose  estates  they  had 
confiscated  and  whose  kindred  they  had  dragged  to 
the  guillotine,  in  the  Imperial  antechambers ;  and 
when,  after  another  turn  of  the  wheel  of  fortune, 


ADDRESS.  79 

Louis  XVIII.  was  restored  to  his  throne,  he  took 
the  regicide  Touched  who  had  voted  for  his  broth- 
er's death,  to  Jiis  cabinet  and  confidence. 

The  people  of  loyal  America  will  never  ask  you, 
Sir,  to  take  to  your  confidence  or  admit  again  to  a 
share  in  the  government  the  hard-hearted  men 
whose  cruel  lust  of  power  has  brought  this  desolat- 
ing war  upon  the  land,  but  there  is  no  personal 
bitterness  felt  even  against  them.  They  may  live, 
if  they  can  bear  to  live  after  wantonly  causing  the 
death  of  so  many  thousands  of  their  fellow-men  ; 
they  may  live  in  safe  obscurity  beneath  the  shelter 
of  the  government  they  have  sought  to  overthrow, 
or  they  may  fly  to  the  protection  of  the  govern- 
ments of  Europe,  —  some  of  them  are  already  there, 
seeking,  happily  in  vain,  to  obtain  the  aid  of  foreign 
powers  in  furtherance  of  their  own  treason.  There 
let  them  stay.  The  humblest  dead  soldier,  that  lies 
cold  and  stiff  in  his  grave  before  us,  is  an  object 
of  envy  beneath  the  clods  that  cover  him,  in  com- 
parison with  the  living  man,  I  care  not  with  what 
trumpery  credentials  he  may  be  furnished,  who  is 
willing  to  grovel  at  the  foot  of  a  foreign  throne 
for  assistance  in  compassing  the  ruin  of  his  country. 

But  the  hour  is  coming  and  now  is,  when  the 
power  of  the  leaders  of  the  Rebellion  to  delude  and 
inflame  must  cease.  There  is  no  bitterness  on  the 
part  of  the  masses.  The  people  of  the  South  are 
not  going  to  wage  an  eternal  war,  for  the  wretched 
pretexts  by  which  this  rebellion  is  sought  to  be 
justified.  The  bonds  that  unite  us  as  one  People, — 


80  ADDRESS. 

a  substantial  community  of  origin,  language,  belief, 
and  law,  (the  four  great  ties  that  hold  the  societies 
of  men  together) ;  common  national  and  political 
interests ;  a  common  history ;  a  common  pride  in  a 
glorious  ancestry ;  a  common  interest  in  this  great 
heritage  of  blessings;  the  very  geographical  features 
of  the  country;  the  mighty  rivers  that  cross  the 
lines  of  climate  and  thus  facilitate  the  interchange 
of  natural  and  industrial  products,  while  the  won- 
der-working arm  of  the  engineer  has  levelled  the 
mountain-walls  which  separate  the  East  and  West, 
compelling  your,  own  Alleghanies,  my  Maryland  and 
Pennsylvania  friends,  to  open  wide  their  everlast- 
ing doors  to  the  chariot-wheels  of  traffic  and  travel, 
—  these  bonds  of  union  are  of  perennial  force  and 
energy,  while  the  causes  of  alienation  are  imagina- 
ry, factitious,  and  transient.  The  heart  of  the  Peo- 
ple, North  and  South,  is  for  the  Union.  Indications, 
too  plain  to  be  mistaken,  announce  the  fact,  both 
in  the  East  and  the  West  of  the  States  in  rebel- 
lion. In  North  Carolina  and  Arkansas  the  fatal 
charm  at  length  is  broken.  At  Raleigh  and  Little 
Rock  the  lips  of  honest  and  brave  men  are  un- 
sealed, and  an  independent  press  is  unlimbering  its 
artillery.  When  its  rifled  cannon  shall  begin  to 
roar,  the  hosts  of  treasonable  sophistry,  —  the  mad 
delusions  of  the  day,  —  will  fly  like  the  Rebel  army 
through  the  passes  of  yonder  mountain.  The  weary 
masses  of  the  people  are  yearning  to  see  the  dear 
old  flag  again  floating  upon  their  capitols,  and  they 
sigh  for  the  return  of  the  peace,  prosperity,  and 


ADDRESS.  81 

happiness,  which  they  enjoyed  under  a  government 
whose  power  was  felt  only  in  its  blessings. 

And  now,  friends,  fellow -citizens  of  Gettysburg 
and  Pennsylvania,  and  you  from  remoter  States,  let 
me  again,  as  we  part,  invoke  your  benediction  on 
these  honored  graves.  You  feel,  though  the  occa- 
sion is  mournful,  that  it  is  good  to  be  here.  You 
feel  that  it  was  greatly  auspicious  for  the  cause  of 
the  country,  that  the  men  of  the  East  and  the  men 
of  the  West,  the  men  of  nineteen  sister  States,  stood 
side  by  side,  on  the  perilous  ridges  of  the  battle. 
You  now  feel  it  a  new  bond  of  union,  that  they 
shall  lie  side  by  side,  till  a  clarion,  louder  than  that 
which  marshalled  them  to  the  combat,  shall  awake 
their  slumbers.  God  bless  the  Union ;  —  it  is  dearer 
to  us  for  the  blood  of  brave  men  which  has  been 
shed  in  its  defence.  The  spots  on  which  they  stood 
and  fell ;  these  pleasant  heights ;  the  fertile  plain 
beneath  them;  the  thriving  village  whose  streets  so 
lately  rang  with  the  strange  din  of  war;  the  fields 
beyond  the  ridge,  where  the  noble  Eeynolds  held 
the  advancing  foe  at  bay,  and,  while  he  gave  up 
his  own  life,  assured  by  his  forethought  and  self- 
sacrifice  the  triumph  of  the  two  succeeding  days; 
the  little  streams  which  wind  through  the  hills,  on 
whose  banks  in  after-times  the  wondering  plough- 
man will  turn  up,  with  the  rude  weapons  of  savage 
warfare,  the  fearful  missiles  of  modern  artillery ; 
Seminary  Ridge,  the  Peach-Orchard,  Cemetery,  Gulp, 
and  Wolf  Hill,  Eound  Top,  Little  Round  Top,  hum- 
ble names,  henceforward  dear  and  famous, — no  lapse 


82  ADDRESS. 

of  time,  no  distance  of  space,  shall  cause  you  to  be 
forgotten.  "The  whole  earth,"  said  Pericles,  as  he 
stood  over  the  remains  of  his  fellow-citizens,  who 
had  fallen  in  the  first  year  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War,  "  the  whole  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  illustrious 
men."  All  time,  he  might  have  added,  is  the  mil- 
lennium of  their  glory.  Surely  I  would  do  no  in- 
justice to  the  other  noble  achievements  of  the  war, 
which  have  reflected  such  honor  on  both  arms  of 
the  service,  and  have  entitled  the  armies  and  the 
navy  of  the  United  States,  their  officers  and  men, 
to  the  warmest  thanks  and  the  richest  rewards 
which  a  grateful  people  can  pay.  But  they,  I  am 
sure,  will  join  us  in  saying,  as  we  bid  farewell  to 
the  dust  of  these  martyr-heroes,  that  wheresoever 
throughout  the  civilized  world  the  accounts  of  this 
great  warfare  are  read,  and  down  to  the  latest  pe- 
riod of  recorded  time,  in  the  glorious  annals  of  our 
common  country  there  will  be  no  brighter  page 
than  that  which  relates  THE  BATTLES  OF  GETTYSBURG. 


HYMN  COMPOSED  BY  B.  B.  FRENCH,  ESQ.,  AT 
GETTYSBURG. 

'T  is  holy  ground,  — 
This  spot,  where,  in  their  graves, 
We  place  our  country's  braves, 
Who  fell  in  Freedom's  holy  cause, 
Fighting  for  liberties  and  laws  ; 

Let  tears  abound. 

Here  let  them  rest ; 
And  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold 
Shall  glow  and  freeze  above  this  mould,  — 
A  thousand  years  shall  pass  away,  — 
A  nation  still  shall  mourn  this  clay, 

Which  how  is  blest. 

Here,  where  they  fell, 
Oft  shall  the  widow's  tear  be  shed, 
Oft  shall  fond  parents  mourn  their  dead  ; 
The  orphan  here  shall  kneel  and  weep, 
And  maidens,  where  their  lovers  sleep, 

Their  woes  shall  tell. 

Great  God  in  heaven  ! 
Shall  all  this  sacred  blood  be  shed  ? 
Shall  we  thus  mourn  our  glorious  dead  ? 
Oh,  shall  the  end  be  wrath  and  woe, 
The  knell  of  Freedom's  overthrow, 

A  country  riven  ? 

It  will  not  be  ! 

We  trust,  O  God !  thy  gracious  power 
To  aid  us  in  our  darkest  hour. 
This  be  our  prayer,  —  "  O  Father  !  save 
A  people's  freedom  from  its  grave. 

All  praise  to  Thee  !  " 


DEDICATORY    ADDRESS 


PRESIDENT  LINCOLN. 


FOURSCORE  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 
We  are  met  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting- 
place  of  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do 
this. 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  con- 
secrate, we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men, 
living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it 
far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will 
little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living, 
rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be 
here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  —  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  the 
cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devo- 
tion,—  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  the  dead  shall  not 
have  died  in  vain,  that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a 
new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  the  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 


DIRGE, 

SUNG    AT    THE 

CONSECRATION   OF  THE   SOLDIERS'   CEMETERY, 
GETTYSBURG,    PA. 

Words  by  JAS.  G.  PERCIVAL.  Music  by  ALFRED  DELANEY. 


GRAVE. 


PIANO. 


Il^;=^ii|=^=iil!fi^3| 


TREBLE. 


1.  O!    it    is  great  for  our  Country  to    die,  whose  ranks  are  contend -ing, 
ALTO. 


-•- -•-•-•*--?-  *-  „  „ 

2.  O!    it    is  sweet  for  our  Country  to     die,  how      soft  -  ly     re-pos-es 

3.  Not  in    E  -  ly  -  si  -  an  fields,  by  the  still  ob    -    liv   -  i  -  ous  riv  -  er, 
TENOR. 


4.  0 !  then  how  great  for  our  Country  to  die,  in  the  front  rank  to  per  -  ish, 
BASS. 


-      tr't/- 





86 


DIRGE,       Continued. 

c==i=d=3=te— i=r .— ssq 


ii^pEp^p^ll  HIP iP|i 

Bright  is    the  wreath  of  our  fame;         glo  -  ry      a  -  waits  us    for    aye; 


War  -  ri  -  or  youth  on  his      bier,         wet     by    the  tears  of     his    love, 
Not    in    the  Isles  of    the     blest,  o  -  ver    the  blue  roll  -  ing     sea; 


Firm  with  our  breast  to  the       foe,         vie-   to  -  ry's  shout  in    our    ear; 

__!_ 


FZ3; 


V0* 

-0-    -0- 


o— 113- 


1— 


•PEEr* 

-i — 


Glo  -  ry,         that     nev  -  er       is       dim,      Shin  -  ing      on      with  a 

'        :- — — 


Wet     by  a       mother's    warm  tears;      they  crown  him      with 

But      on  O   -  lym  -  pi    -    an    heights    shall    dwell   the       de    - 

-sip p — -j — ^--T-77-r'--  !— w-T— 


-[ T''^]^! 

i=3E33 


Long  they       our    stat  -  ues    shall  crown,         in  songs     our 


.J d J J ^ . 

:j=J_;^|:g=i 


-!-. 


i — i 


-- 


3:-, 


:d^==:±:i:i 


zz:±:i:-J- 

-»         » — s m-  -T—  d~ 

gF^-=3rf:i*f 


3 


m 


DIRGE,       Concluded. 


87 


light  nev  -  er    ending,    Glo  -  ry,  that    nev-er    shall  fade,    nev  -  er     O! 


s<=*E^3  IEES 

?"  T  T 

garlands    of     ro  -  ses,  Weep,  and  then  joyous  -  ly    tarn,  bright  where  he 
vot  -  ed    for  -  ev  -  er;  There  shall  as  -  semble    the    good,  there  the  wise, 


mem-o  -  ry  cherish  ;  We  shall  look  forth  from  our  hearen,  pleased  the  sweet 


:=P=:f 

Jl8t=T* 

c*s — «- 


— ^-j- 


i — i- 

-=!- 


:=Jv:=it=z^=i=id=1: 


===J|         =^- 
* *~T gj—    —^^» ?-|[- = 


way! 


tri  -  umphs     a      -     bove 

val  -  iant,      and         free 


mu  -  sic  to  hear.. 


CV-_ TL. 1 XZ1 1 1 a_I|L___._._:ZZT: T1 


-^q— j— -ri- 1 -H-T 

_^_  _^>_        -^-    . 


BENEDICTION 

BY 

REV.   H.   L.   BAUGHER,  D.  D., 

PRESIDENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA  COLLEGE,   GETTYSBURG. 


O  THOU  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  God  of  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  who  by  Thy  kind  providence  hast  per- 
mitted us  to  engage  in  these  solemn  services,  grant  us  Thy 
blessing. 

Bless  this  consecrated  ground,  and  these  holy  graves. 
Bless  the  President  of  these  United  States,  and  his  Cabinet. 
Bless  the  Governors  and  the  Representatives  of  the  States 
here  assembled  with  ah1  needed  grace  to  conduct  the  affairs 
committed  into  their  hands,  to  the  glory  of  Thy  name,  and 
the  greatest  good  of  the  people. 

May  this  great  nation  be  delivered  from  treason  and  rebel- 
lion at  home,  and  from  the  power  of  enemies  abroad.  And 
now  may  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  love  of 
God  our  Heavenly  Father,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  be  with  you  all.  Amen. 


THE    END. 


M10247G 


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